Holocaust Archives Now Available to the Public

The International Tracing Service’s archives have now been opened for the public after more than 60 years.

For genealogists of Jewish families, tracing the 6 million Jewish victims that  disappeared without a trace has been a challenge. More than 50 million documents are held at the International Tracing Service (ITS) at Bad Arolsen, Germany. For years, this archive has collected documents to help trace what happened to family members.

For decades after World War II, the files were used only to help find missing persons or document atrocities to support compensation claims. But in November, the last of the 11 countries that govern the archive under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross cleared the way for public access.

Since then, interest has skyrocketed. Erich Oetiker, deputy director of the archive, said while the staff of 400 continue to process some 1,000 tracing requests per day, there are now also near daily visits from historians or individuals eager to trace a lost person's fate or view an original document.

The archive has little information online, almost everything is on paper. Other major Holocaust collections exist at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., as well as Israel's Yad Vashem—both of which hold digitized copies of part of the collection—along with the Polish Institute for National Remembrance.

You can find more information at:

International Tracing Service: http://www.its-arolsen.org

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: http://www.ushmm.org

Yad Vashem: http://www.yadvashem.org

Institute of National Remembrance: http://www.ipn.gov.pl/wai/en/10/5

The Washington museum has drawn up a list of more than 150 German keywords with English translations to use in computer searches: http://itsrequest.ushmm.org/its/Glossary.pdf.

Comments

[Donna]

Thanks for the info. Do they only have records for the 6 million Jews, or do they also have records on the 5 million non-Jews who also died in the Holocaust? I hope it's for all so all relatives can benefit from finding out information on their families.

[Dae Powell]

This is a neat idea. I wonder why Ancestry hasn't considered doing this?

Happy Dae
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com

[T. Jolink]

This is the original archive of all holocaust victims. I asked for and got information on distant relatives who were part of the resistance and harboured Jews during the war. It is free but you may have to exercise a few months patience, even when you submit your request electronically using the online forms.

[Harvey Glasner]

Do you mind if I reprint your posting on "Holocaust Archives Made Available to the Public" in the newsletter of the Toronto Jewish Genealogical Society's newsletter? Our newsletter is called Shem Tov and is printed for members every quarter. Back issues can be read on our website, www.jgstoronto.ca

Harvey Glasner
editor
Shem Tov

[Dick Eastman]

Hi Harvey,

You already have permission to reprint Standard Edition articles. For details, go to the menus in in the upper right of most pages in this newsletter and click on COPYRIGHTS.

Thanks.

- Dick Eastman

[Joy Rich]

Donna asked "Do they only have records for the 6 million Jews, or do they also have records on the 5 million non-Jews who also died in the Holocaust? I hope it's for all so all relatives can benefit from finding out information on their families."

Donna, the International Tracing Service's records are about all of the victims of Nazi persecution. ITS has records concerning 17.5 million people.

Joy

[Joy Rich]

Harvey, two other articles you might find useful are ITS's press release at

http://www.its-arolsen.org/en/press/index.html?expand=716&cHash=944f81dfb9
and the article "Lost in the Holocaust: Experts plumb newly opened archive in Germany" by Melissa Eddy of the Associated Press at

http://www.kbsradio.ca/news/56/715415 .

Joy

[Joy Rich]

Dae, on the FAQ page of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's website at http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/its/faq, one of the questions is

"Which institutions will receive a copy of the archive?"

The response is

"The International Commission decided that each of the 11 nations could receive a single copy of the archive and designate an archival repository with the appropriate technological, archival and scholarly expertise to serve survivors and their families as well as historians. The United States has designated the [U.S. Holocaust Memorial] Museum to hold the U.S. copy. Israel has designated Yad Vashem [The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority], and Poland has designated the Institute of National Remembrance to hold their respective copies."