Mission Statement

„The International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen (ITS) serves victims of Nazi persecutions and their families by documenting their fate through the archives it manages.

The ITS preserves these historic records and makes them available for research.”

About ITS

In its mission statement, the International Tracing Service (ITS) declares its commitment to serve the victims of Nazi persecution and their families by documenting and evaluating the fate of the victims and maintaining this information in its archives.
The archive’s collections are unique in scope and significance. The ITS is responsible for preserving historical records, processing » tracing requests and making the archive accessible for » historical research.
The ITS archive stores 26,000 metres of various types of record. The alphabetically and phonetically arranged Central Name Index contains over 50 million reference cards for over 17.5 million people and is the key to the documents and correspondence files.
In the » ITS collections on » Prisoners, » Forced Labourers, the Post-War Period (» Displaced Persons) and » Children Tracing Archive information is stored in lists or on cards.
These records can still help to shed light on the fate of many. The staff of the International Tracing Service support research and offer comprehensive help to visitors who wish to work with our archives."It will now be possible to carry out detailed research on the transport of prisoners, the camp populations and the health of forced laborers," said Reto Meister, Swiss director of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany.http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2976227,00.html