Arolsen Archives International Center on Nazi Persecution

History and Founding

The Arolsen Archives – International Center on Nazi Persecution (formerly the International Tracing Service, or ITS) originated in Allied efforts during World War II to locate and document missing persons, forced labourers, prisoners, refugees, and displaced persons affected by Nazi persecution. In 1943, Allied Forces Headquarters and the British Red Cross established an early tracing bureau, which later evolved into the Central Tracing Bureau under the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). The operation moved between London, Versailles, Frankfurt am Main, and eventually Bad Arolsen, Germany, chosen for its central location among the Allied occupation zones and its intact infrastructure.

In 1948 the organization was formally renamed the International Tracing Service (ITS). The institution was administered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from the 1950s until 2012 and governed by an International Commission representing eleven member states: Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. After decades of restricted access, the archive officially opened to researchers in 2007 following pressure from scholars, survivors, and advocacy organizations. In 2019, the institution adopted its current name, Arolsen Archives – International Center on Nazi Persecution, reflecting an expanded focus on public access, education, digitization, and remembrance.

Collections and Holdings

The Arolsen Archives hold the world’s most comprehensive archive on victims and survivors of National Socialism. The collection contains more than 30 million documents relating to approximately 17.5 million individuals, including concentration camp prisoners, forced labourers, displaced persons, refugees, and others persecuted by the Nazi regime.

The archive includes incarceration records, transport lists, registration cards, labor and immigration files, death records, health documents, and postwar displaced persons records. Central to the holdings is the Central Name Index (CNI), which serves as a key research tool for locating individual records across the collection. Physical holdings include approximately 26,000 linear metres of original documentation, extensive microfilm and microfiche collections, and more than 40 million digitized documents accessible online.

The institution also oversees several public initiatives, including #everynamecounts, a crowdsourced transcription project that helps make victim records searchable online, and #StolenMemory, an effort to return personal belongings confiscated from concentration camp prisoners to surviving family members. The online archive was developed in cooperation with institutions including Yad Vashem and other Holocaust research and memorial organizations.

Access and Usage

The Arolsen Archives provide free online access to millions of digitized records through their public search platform at arolsen-archives.org. Researchers, journalists, educators, students, survivors, and family members can search the collections remotely, while on-site research access and educational programs are available in Bad Arolsen by appointment.

The institution continues to assist survivors and relatives seeking information about the fate of persecuted family members. The archives cooperate internationally with memorials, museums, archives, and research institutions and participate in organizations including the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI). One copy of the digitized collection has been distributed to each of the eleven member states, with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum serving as the U.S. repository.

Recognition

n 2013, the Arolsen Archives’ historical documents and Central Name Index were inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in recognition of their global historical significance. The institution’s online archive later received the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award in 2020 for its work in digitization, preservation, and public access to Holocaust-era records.