[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Red Cross International Tracing Service

[Barb Yantha]

Thank you, Howard!  Excellent information!

Barb

On 30 April 2010 00:30, Howard Krushel <krushelh at telus.net> wrote:

> George and Barb:
> I believe there is one main site which has all the information; that is the
> Red Cross International Tracing Service(ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany; They
> have a huge collection of data. ITS maintains a Central Name Index of 50
> million individual entries(index cards) representing at least 17.5 million
> different individuals. This index indicates what may be available in
> specific documents, known as tracing documents (T/D). Closed to public
> access since its inception in Jan. 1946 until the fall of 2007, the ITS
> governing council of representatives from 11 countries amended its charter
> in 2006 "to ensure access, for research purposes".
> ITS digitized its Master Index and these have been made available at the
> United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
> However the Tracing Documents(T/D) will not be digitized until the end of
> 2010 or the beginning of 2011.
> To begin a search one would need to travel to Washington or Bad Arolsen, or
> hire a researcher or write to ITS at email at its-arolsen.org  . General
> questions, on a very common name found over a wide area, would likely take
> up to much time for their staff.
>
> Further information can be obtained at www.its-arolsen.org . If a search
> of
> the Central Name Index reveals that ITS holds files of interest, the next
> step is to acquire the files. T/D files are not scheduled to be digitized
> until later. So, at this time, the only place to see these files is at ITS
> in Bad Arolsen.
>
> There are 2.5 million T/D. They are correspondence files created when
> someone wrote to ITS after the war asking for information about one or more
> relatives. For every letter of inquiry, ITS created a file card with the
> name of the inquirer and opened a case file. Into the case file went the
> original letter of inquiry, any future correspondence, and all ITS
> documents
> that applied to the person being sought.
>
> Two other Red Cross offices may to be of interest, especially the one
> located in Munich (www.drk-suchdienst.org  ); This office has recently
> signed an agreement with the Archive in Kiev in order to check on the
> whereabouts of about 20,000 people who disappeared.
>
> The second office is located in Hamburg (www.drk.de/suchdienst).
>
> Apparently Bad Arolsen has more information on the area of post-war Germany
> occupied by England, France and the U.S. then it has of the area that was
> occupied by Russia.
>
> Howard Krushel
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org
> [mailto:ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org] On Behalf Of George
> Shoning
> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 2:24 PM
> To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org; byantha at gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Village name
>
>
> Barb,
>
>
>
> You wrote:
>
>
>
> > The individuals that fled would've registered along the way with the
>
> > Red Cross? And families were reunited following the war through the
>
> > Red Cross? How did they do that?  How did they know where to go
>
> > to register? Where could I find the information they registered?
>
>
>
>
>
> My mother and relatives went through this process; I was just about eleven.
> The Red Cross was very active in reuniting families.  Much of the
> information about the process was by word-of-mouth among displaced persons.
> Anyone who wanted to find a relative filed an application with the Red
> Cross
> in Germany.  The Red Cross matched applications and notified the applicants
> of the addresses of the sought person or persons.  Needless to say, this
> was
> all done manually (no computers) and in some cases took rather long.  My
> mother was able to locate her mother, brother, and sister-in-law through
> this process.
>
>
>
> I do not know if or where the applications submitted to the Red Cross were
> saved.
>
>
>
> George Shoning
>
>
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