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Danny and Nurit Kononowicz from Israel visited the ITS with a long list of names, since many of Nurit’s family members had been deported from the Yugoslavian city of Novi Sad by the Gestapo starting in 1942. The fates of four of them are documented in the ITS archive.

In July 1936, the Nazis established the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin. It was one of the first concentration camps and also served the Nazis as a training site for camp commandants and guards. In its early years, the camp primarily held political opponents of the regime. Between 1936...

The International Tracing Service (ITS) is providing concentration camp memorials with digital copies of its documents. Each memorial can integrate the digital documents relating to the respective concentration camp into its own database and use them for researching the fates of former inmates. “Access to documents and...

The French politician, publicist and Auschwitz survivor Simone Veil died on June 30, 2017, at the age of 89. Throughout her life, she fought against forgetting the Holocaust and for a unified Europe. “As the prerequisite for a free future, reconciled Europe needs a lasting foundation based on two pillars: passing on...

The 80th meeting of the International Commission for the International Tracing Service (IC/ITS) was held in Luxembourg and included presentations and a roundtable discussion on the development of the ITS and its future plans. This was prompted by the upcoming ten-year anniversary of the opening of the archive for...

The International Commission for the ITS (IC/ITS) met in Luxembourg for two days in mid-June for its annual meeting. Additional events were held to accompany this 80th meeting of the ITS governing committee. His Royal Highness Guillaume Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg joined the committee members in viewing the ITS...

Seventy-six years ago today, on June 22, 1941, the German Reich invaded the Soviet Union. The campaign was planned as a “eugenic” war of extermination from the very start. The objectives were to exploit the people and territories economically, conquer “lebensraum,” and systematically murder the Jewish population as...

There are presently some 65.6 million refugees worldwide. The majority of them have fled from violent conflicts, wars, or serious violations of human rights. More than half are children. Only around six percent of all refugees are in Europe – most live in the Middle East and Africa, often in neighboring countries and...

On 7 February 1950, the Fair Sea left the port of Naples, Italy for Australia. Anton Suschinsky was one of those on board. The thirty-five-year-old was heading for a new life. Sixty-seven years later, his children set out to establish their father’s origins and look for traces of him in Europe.

Archives around the world are putting collections online and gaining experience with digital usage. Through the EHRI (European Holocaust Research Infrastructure) network, trailblazers in this development are meeting in Bucharest this week to present their projects.