tracing – research – education
DESCRIPTION
Sharing Truth- National Research Centre Forum"Documenting and Memorializing the Holocaust "Susanne Urban, Head of ResearchInternational Tracing Service, GermanyTRANSCRIPT
Tracing – Research – Education
Dr. Susanne Urban
Mission Statement
“The International Tracing Service serves victims of Nazi persecution and their families by documenting their fate through the archives it manages. The ITS preserves these historic records and makes them available for research.”
History ITS/ Predecessors
1944/45: Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces: Registration
1945-47: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration: Repatriation
1947/51: International Refugee Organization: Repatriation/ Care/ Emigration
1951/55: Allied High Commission for Germany: Care/ Emigration
UNRRA ● IRO ● ITS
Responsible for Victims/ Survivors of …
Holocaust ● Nazi-persecution ●
Incarceration ● Forced Labor
Organisation ITS
1955: “…the ICRC, being a body with a neutral, impartial, universal and responsible character shall have charge of the administration and direction of the ITS.” ● Opening 2007 ● Withdrawal ICRC 01/2013
International Committee of the Red Cross
FutureInternational Commission
Archives: ca. 26 km
Documents 1933-1945;Alliied Order 163, 1945-1951;Predecessor Organizations;Copies since 1980s.Finding aid (CNI).
Incarceration / Camps;Forced and Slave labor;Aftermath (DPs);Historical Documentation;Child Search Branch;Maps;Camp Inmates‘ Possessions
Aims and Challenges
Humanitarian Work ● Archives ●
Research/ Education ● Access
Child Search Branch 1945-1951
„Unaccompanied Children“
Search – Registration or Documentation – Rehabilitation – Adoption – Emigration
Child Search Branch 1945-1951
Child Search Branch 1945-1951
“UNRRA was prepared to find people starving, sick, without clothing, displaced and homeless, but they were not prepared to handle a problem of stolen children.“ (12.4.1947)
Child Search Branch 1945-1951
“No stone is left unturned.“
“Each child is carefully interviewed by an UNRRA Child welfare Specialist“
“These children, whose age range from 8- to 16 years – [were] systematically starved, beaten and exposed to extremities … to help them regain confidence in other people“ (1946)
Education/ Survivors’ legacies
AIMS: AIMS: Citizenship Concept Empathy = Responsibility = Secondary testimony = Stories will not be forgotten
