A paper monument

More about the book

Under the Nazi dictatorship from 1933 to 1945, millions were deported and murdered, prompting the establishment of one of the largest archives on Nazi crimes in Arolsen. This archive houses over 30 million documents, index cards, and lists pertaining to Holocaust victims, concentration camp prisoners, foreign forced laborers, and survivors. Tracing offices were initially created during World War I, but the scale of devastation in World War II necessitated new structures by the Allies in 1945 to locate missing victims and gather relevant documents. Consequently, the International Tracing Service was founded in 1948 as a temporary measure, later evolving into a permanent institution with expanded responsibilities. Since 2019, it has been known as the Arolsen Archives, serving as an international center on Nazi persecution. The collections represent a monumental record of millions of individual fates, cataloged in a vast Central Name Index and recognized on the UNESCO Memory of the World register. This exhibition explores the evolution of tracing and information provision, the archive's creation, and the access it provided, while also addressing how historical evidence and the experiences of Nazi crime victims have been handled over time.