News

The Greek historians Stratos Dordanas and Vaios Kalogrias visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) together to research Nazi concentration camps in Greece. They found a lot of material they were not expecting.

Over a period of three days, fifteen researchers from Germany and Austria acquainted themselves with the ITS archive. The students and doctoral candidates will use the results of their research for their master's and doctor’s theses. The workshop, which took place from October 10 to 12, 2017, was organized by the...

Shoshana Berman survived two dictators: Hitler and Stalin. Now the 83-year-old Israeli would like to record her life story in an autobiography and is therefore carrying out research in several archives. When she visited the Documenta art exhibition in Kassel recently, she took advantage of the opportunity to stop by at...

Originally, Titia Vuyk had merely asked for information about her grandfather Jan Hendrik Olivier Bosdriesz and his persecution during the Nazi period. It was more than mere information, however, that came to light in the archive of the International Tracing Service (ITS). As it turned out, there were also objects once...

On September 15, 1939, the Nazi regime executed a conscientious objector for the first time. The SS shot 29-year-old August Dickmann, a Jehovah’s Witness who was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen. Dickmann had refused to sign his military service record on religious grounds. As the result, the Nazis held the first public...

Dascha Sekeris-Abelman would like to tell the story of her mother, the Holocaust survivor Markéta Ledererová. Her search for clues has meanwhile led the Dutchwoman to the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, accompanied by her daughter Jindra Bausewein-Sekeris, her niece Françoise de Gooijer-van Aalsburg...

On 2 September 1939, just one day after the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War II, the Nazis erected the Stutthof concentration camp, 21 miles east of Gdansk. 78 years later, the International Tracing Service (ITS) was now able to hand over the personal belongings of a former prisoner to his family. The...

Miroslaw Wozniewicz is the son of a survivor of the Neuengamme concentration camp. He and his family recently received a visit from Malgorzata Przybyla, an International Tracing Service (ITS) employee, at their home in Jeziora Wielkie near Bydgoszcz. Przybyla had something to return to them: personal items once...

Patrick Vereecke is researching his grandfather’s fate. The SS deported Leopold Vereecke from his native Rièzes, a town in Belgium. He never returned home. His grandson recently visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen to have a look at documents testifying to Leopold Vereecke’s persecution.

The International Tracing Service (ITS) is receiving further aid in the amount of 20,000 euros for the preservation of its archival holdings. It plans to apply these funds toward the deacidification and restoration of layout plans from concentration camps as well as maps indicating the routes of death marches. Under...