Sharjah24 - AFP: In the quiet town of Bad Arolsen, Germany, the Arolsen Archives house the world’s largest collection of records on victims and survivors of the Nazi regime. Established in 1946 by the Allies as the International Tracing Service, the archive originally helped locate missing persons after the war. It now contains around 30 million documents and objects related to over 17 million people, including Holocaust victims, political prisoners, Roma, homosexuals, and kidnapped children.
The archive continues to provide crucial links for families trying to piece together their histories. Cases like that of two half-sisters—one American and one German—who learned of each other’s existence through the archive, highlight its ongoing relevance. Their father had survived Nazi camps, later emigrated to the US, and left behind a fragmented family history that the archive helped reunite.
Although much of its collection is now digitised, the archive still holds thousands of personal belongings recovered from concentration camps, such as rings and watches. It processes around 20,000 enquiries annually from descendants of survivors seeking answers about their relatives.
Some stories end with emotional reunions or discoveries, such as the return of a wedding ring to a family unaware of their ancestor’s imprisonment in Dachau. In other cases, individuals receive long-lost heirlooms or learn the fates of missing family members. Volunteers across Europe support this work, helping to uncover vital clues hidden in documents and records from Nazi offices, the Red Cross, and Allied forces.
Despite the passage of time, the Arolsen Archives remain a powerful tool for remembrance, offering closure to families and preserving the memory of those lost to the atrocities of the Nazi era. For many, it is not just a historical repository, but a path toward healing and understanding.
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