Dokumentacja Międzynarodowej Służby Poszukiwań w Bad Arolsen – archiwum, zespół, zbiór
Documentation of the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen – archive, group, collection

Summary/Abstract: The functioning of states and societies in times of war and natural disasters undergoes changes, unplanned phenomena appear, and their documentation is not performed according to previously established rules. The war conflicts in Europe in the 19th century became the impetus for the organisation of aid, initially provided to soldiers, and later to civilians. These initiatives are still in existence, now under the banner of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. World War II, in addition to warfare, brought numerous migrations of people, most often forced. The Red Cross agencies began humanitarian activities at that time, mainly aimed at searching for missing persons, and continued after the war. Since 1946, the organization that coordinated this, the International Tracing Service, was located in Arolsen, Germany. The collection of documentation gathered by ITS was inscribed in 2013 on the UNESCO Memory of the World Program world list. The documentation stored in Arolsen is much broader, however. In addition to the collected Files on imprisonment in labor camps, concentration camps, ghettos and prisons, the Files of forced laborers, the Files of resettled persons, the Files on the search for children taken from their parents and the Central Personal File, there is also the organization’s own documentation from over 70 years of its operation. Since 2019, the organization has been operating under the name of International Center on Nazi Persecution and is no longer only involved in humanitarian activities, but also in research and education.

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