Metadata: Digital copy of the archives of the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen
Collection
- Country:
- Belgium
- Holding institution:
- National Archives of Belgium
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archives Générales du Royaume
- Postal address:
- Ruisbroekstraat 2-6 / Rue de Ruysbroeck 2-6, 1000 Brussel
- Phone number:
- +32 (0)2 513 76 80
- Web address:
- http://www.arch.be/
- Email:
- archives.generales@arch.be
- Reference number:
- NAB-Brussels-Digitale kopie van het archief van de International Tracing Service te Bad Arolsen
- Title:
- Digital copy of the archives of the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen
- Title (official language):
- Digitale kopie van het archief van de International Tracing Service te Bad Arolsen
- Creator/accumulator:
- International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen; International Tracing Service te Bad Arolsen; Service international de Recherches à Bad Arolsen
- Date(s):
- 1930/2016
- Date note:
- Material continues to be added to this collection.
- Language:
- German
- English
- French
- Dutch; Flemish
- Extent:
- ca. 150 million images
- Scope and content:
-
This impressive fonds actually consists of a number of archives produced by many different organisations and institutions, assembled and/or copied by the ITS to enable the service to search for individuals. As a result, the focus of this fonds is on the main groups of victims – persecuted persons, forced labourers and displaced persons. The Central Name Index, consisting of more than 42 million digital images, constitutes the most voluminous series. This card index serves as the main finding aid for the identification of individuals. However, the various types of index cards do not cover all series of the ITS archives, making it necessary to conduct parallel searches in a number of other series, such as the post-war index of displaced persons, the post-war registrations of aliens in Germany etc.
Apart from the Central Name Index, the fonds is divided in three large sub-fonds.
The first sub-fonds (“Documents about detainees”) mainly contains material from camps and ghettos, but also archival material concerning transports, prisons, registration by the Gestapo, organisations (for example the card index of the Joodse Raad voor Amsterdam), etc. In the sections concerning camps and ghettos, documents regarding the same individual were assembled in envelopes.
The second sub-fonds relates to the registration by public institutions, insurance companies and businesses of aliens and persecuted Germans (ca. 1939-1947). It mainly consists of lists and other records (e.g. birth and death certificates), produced in the context of the Allied instructions concerning the collection of data about foreigners and persecuted Germans in the Occupation Zones. We also note collections of archival material related to forced labour (e.g. material of the Organisation Todt, and other companies and institutions), concerning the post-war search for missing persons and survivors, regarding the registration of victims, etc.
Lastly, the third sub-fonds consists of post-war documents and mainly concerns the fate of displaced persons. We note archival material produced by the ITS itself (used to map the waves of migration in Europe in the immediate post-war period) as well as from international organisations involved in helping displaced persons (e.g. the International Refugee Organisations, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration) and the department of Tracing of Children of the ITS.
The archives of the ITS constitute an essential source of information on the fate of the victims of the Nazi regime during the Second World War. Note that this fonds is a digital copy; the originals are still kept by the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen (Germany).
- Archival history:
- The fonds was acquired by the ARA-AGR in 2009. After testing and implementation (2010), the fonds was officially put into operation in September 2011.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- To anticipate the search for and return of the many missing persons, refugees, survivors and displaced persons in Europe, a Central Tracing Bureau (CTB) was created in February 1944, under the supervision of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). Following the dissolution of SHAEF (July 1945) the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) became responsible for the office. The CTB created local branches, known as national tracing bureaus (including one in Belgium). ‘Zonal Tracing Bureaus’ existed in the four occupation zones in Germany. The administration was reorganised in July 1947. The CTB was renamed to International Tracing Service (ITS) and fell under the aegis of the International Refugee Organisation (IRO). Its framework was greatly improved. Since then, requests are treated at the central level and are given a unique code (known as the Tracing/Documents number). In 1951 the administration was transferred to the High Commission for Occupied Germany; its archives were thoroughly restructured. From the ratification of the Bonn Agreements (6 June 1955) until 2012, the ITS was the responsibility of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Given the changed mission and tasks of the ITS (increasingly focused on research and education), the ICRC withdrew from its management in 2012. The German Bundesarchiv has been the institutional partner of the ITS since January 2013. The ITS is under the tutelage of an International Commission (ICITS), which today consists of representatives from 11 countries. From the 1980s the ITS was faced with a marked increase in the number of requests for information, mainly from the former Eastern Bloc. The increasing workload led to the decision, in the late 1990s, to digitise its archives systematically. In the same period calls for the opening of the ITS archives for research increased. The Bonn Agreements were amended (2006) after years of negotiations; since then, the ITS archives have been made available for research and members of the ICITS can obtain a digital copy. (http://www.its-arolsen.org/en/homepage/index.html; F. Strubbe, P.-A. Tallier, P. Falek & G. Desmet, Digitale kopie van het archief van de International Tracing Service te Bad Arolsen, Jalons de Recherche/Zoekwijzers no. 29, Brussel, ARA-AGR, 2011.)
- Subject terms:
- Aid and relief
- Antisemitism
- Children
- Displaced persons
- Forced labour (of Jews)
- Holocaust
- Holocaust--Concentration camps
- Holocaust--Deportation
- Holocaust--Ghettos
- Holocaust--Survivors
- Migration
- Nazism
- Nazism--Nazis
- Plunder
- Prisoners
- Refugees
- Restitution and compensation
- Trade and commerce
- Vital records
- Vital records--Birth records
- Vital records--Death records
- World War II
- Access, restrictions:
- Because of its complexity and the sensitive nature of the data, the fonds is not freely consultable. Researchers are required to send a detailed written request to the General State Archives. After preliminary research by the staff of the ARA-AGR in the ITS archives, an appointment will be made with the researcher in order to consult the material in the reading room.
- Finding aids:
- The fonds itself is made accessible by a complex database and several detailed finding aids, which are not freely available to the public. The General State Archives however published a research guide on this fonds – cfr. F. Strubbe, P.-A. Tallier, P. Falek & G. Desmet, Digitale kopie van het archief van de International Tracing Service te Bad Arolsen, Jalons de Recherche/Zoekwijzers no. 29, Brussel, ARA-AGR, 2011, F. Strubbe, P.-A. Tallier, P. Falek & G. Desmet, Copie numérique des archives du Service international de Recherches à Bad Arolsen, Jalons de Recherche/Zoekwijzers no. 30, Bruxelles, ARA-AGR, 2011 and F. Strubbe, P.-A. Tallier, P. Falek & G. Desmet, Digital copy of the archives of the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, accessible at the National Archives, Jalons de Recherche/Zoekwijzers no. 37, Bruxelles, ARA-AGR, 2012. This research guide can be downloaded on the website of the General State Archives.
- Yerusha Network member:
- State Archives of Belgium
