Table Of Content(cid:2) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
Documenting Life
and Destruction
Holocaust Sources
in Context
SERIES EDITOR
Jürgen Matthäus
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DOCUMENTING LIFE AND DESTRUCTION
HOLOCAUST SOURCES IN CONTEXT
Th is groundbreaking series provides a new perspective on history using fi rst-
hand accounts of the lives of those who suff ered through the Holocaust, those
who perpetrated it, and those who witnessed it as bystanders. Th e United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for
Advanced Holocaust Studies presents a wide range of documents from diff erent
archival holdings, expanding knowledge about the lives and fates of Holocaust
victims and making these resources broadly available to the general public and
scholarly communities for the fi rst time.
Books in the Series
1. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume I, 1933–1938, Jürgen Matthäus and
Mark Roseman (2010)
2. Children during the Holocaust, Patricia Heberer (2011)
3. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume II, 1938–1940, Alexandra Garbarini
with Emil Kerenji, Jan Lambertz, and Avinoam Patt (2011)
4. Th e Diary of Samuel Golfard and the Holocaust in Galicia, Wendy Lower
(2011)
5. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume III, 1941–1942, Jürgen Matthäus
with Emil Kerenji, Jan Lambertz, and Leah Wolfson (2013)
6. Th e Holocaust in Hungary: Evolution of a Genocide, Zoltán Vági, László
Csősz, and Gábor Kádár (2013)
7. War, Pacifi cation, and Mass Murder, 1939: Th e Einsatzgruppen in Poland,
Jürgen Matthäus, Jochen Böhler, and Klaus-Michael Mallmann (2014)
8. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume IV, 1942–1943, Emil Kerenji (2014)
9. Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume V, 1944–1946, Leah Wolfson (2015)
10. Th e Political Diary of Alfred Rosenberg and the Onset of the Holocaust, Jürgen
Matthäus and Frank Bajohr (2015)
11. Nazi Persecution and Postwar Repercussions: Th e International Tracing Service
Archive and Holocaust Research, Suzanne Brown-Fleming (2016)
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A project of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Sara J. Bloomfield
Director
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
Paul A. Shapiro
Director
Jürgen Matthäus
Director, Applied Research
under the auspices of the
Academic Committee
of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Peter Hayes, Chair
Doris L. Bergen Sara Horowitz Alvin H. Rosenfeld
Richard Breitman Steven T. Katz Menachem Z. Rosensaft
Christopher R. Browning William S. Levine George D. Schwab
David Engel Deborah E. Lipstadt Michael A. Stein
David Fishman Wendy Lower Jeff rey Veidlinger
Zvi Y. Gitelman Michael R. Marrus James E. Young
Paul Hanebrink John T. Pawlikowski
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Th is publication has been made possible by
support from
Th e William S. and Ina Levine Foundation
and
Th e Blum Family Foundation
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Documenting Life and Destruction
Holocaust Sources in Context
NAZI PERSECUTION
AND POSTWAR
REPERCUSSIONS
The International Tracing Service Archive
and Holocaust Research
Suzanne Brown-Fleming
Foreword by Paul A. Shapiro
Advisory Committee:
Christopher R. Browning
David Engel
Sara Horowitz
Steven T. Katz
Alvin H. Rosenfeld
Rowman & Littlefi eld
in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
2016
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For USHMM:
Project Manager: Mel Hecker
Translator: Kathleen Luft
Researchers: Holly Robertson Huff nagle, Amanda Pridmore
Published by Rowman & Littlefi eld
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Eastover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Front cover: USHMMPA WS# 43574
Copyright © 2016 by Rowman & Littlefi eld
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
Brown-Fleming, Suzanne, author.
Nazi persecution and postwar repercussions : the International Tracing
Service archive and Holocaust research / Suzanne Brown-Fleming.
Lanham : Rowman & Littlefi eld, [2016] | Series: Documenting life
and destruction: Holocaust sources in context | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
LCCN 2015026631| ISBN 9781442251731 (cloth : alkaline paper) |
ISBN 9781442251755 (e-book)
LCSH: International Tracing Service. | Concentration camp inmates—
Archival resources—Germany—Arolsen. | War victims—Archival
resources—Conservation and restoration—Germany—Arolsen. | World War,
1939–1945—Archival resources—Conservation and restoration—Germany—Arolsen.
LCC HV6762.G3 .B76 2015 | DDC 026/.9405318--dc23 LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015026631
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic
or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written
permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
™
Th e paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
ForewordbyPaulA.Shapiro ix
Acknowledgements xxiii
Abbreviations xxv
1 TheInternationalTracingServiceHoldings 1
TheInternationalTracingServiceHoldings 6
SubunitsOneandTwo 8
SubunitThree 14
SubunitFour 18
SubunitFive 20
SubunitSix 23
NonscannedMaterials 27
UsingtheInternationalTracingServiceHoldings 28
ScholarlyOpportunities 31
DocumentList 35
Documents 37
2 ‘‘OurMothers,OurFathers’’:Lahnstein 53
DocumentList 76
Documents 79
3 JewishVoices 101
‘‘ItAllDependedonHisMood’’ 105
vii
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viii Contents
‘‘FragenanalleAuschwitzer’’ 107
‘‘InBuchenwaldISaidIAmaGree[k]andNot[a]Jew’’ 113
WeRegrettoInformYou... 119
DocumentList 126
Documents 128
4 HourZero:TheYear1945 151
HourZero 152
MurderandCollaborationatWar’sEnd 153
‘‘ButItWasNoneofMyBusiness’’ 157
DeathbyMarch 158
Liberation 161
‘‘DeathsWereAveraging500PerDay’’ 163
CORC/P(45)54 167
InsteadofRetribution,Justice 173
‘‘Statistics’’ 174
DocumentList 176
Documents 178
5 ImaginingtheDisplaced 189
FreshApproachestoDPsusingMassDataSets 191
DPsBorninAsia,Africa,theMiddleEastandLatinAmerica 193
JewsandtheQuestfor‘‘DueProtection’’ 195
MuslimsasForcedLaborers 199
‘‘InSaigonIhavemyFather’’ 203
IlDuce 205
‘‘Kalmook—NotEligibleforAnyScheme’’ 208
CollaboratorsandPerpetratorsinITS 211
Conclusion 218
DocumentList 220
Documents 232
Appendix:TheInternationalTracingServiceHoldingsbySubunit 237
Bibliography 257
Index 271
AbouttheAuthor 279
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Foreword
by Paul A. Shapiro
D
URINGTHEyearsthatIworkedtoopenthearchiveoftheInternational
Tracing Service (ITS)—nearly a decade that culminated in the ratification
byelevencountriesofformalamendmentstotheinternationalagreementsgov-
erning the ITS—it was difficult to fully comprehend the multiple levels of sig-
nificance that would emerge once the tens of millions of documents locked up
atITSheadquartersinBadArolsen,Germany,becamefullyaccessible.Keptout
ofthereachofsurvivors,researchers,educators,andotherswithpotentialinter-
est, the documents had been utilized for over 60 years almost exclusively for
tracing and name search purposes and were being used as the twenty-first cen-
tury began to validate slave and forced labor compensation claims that flowed
infromanalreadydisappearinggenerationofsurvivors,whohadsufferedperse-
cutionatthehandsofNaziGermanyandherallies.Themostcommonnotion
regarding ITS was that the archive containedmillions of name cardsand name
listsofvarioussortsandprovenances,andlittleelse.TheInternationalCommit-
tee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which administered ITS on behalf of an eleven-
country International Commission, made only minimal information available
regarding the archive’s contents and fostered this limited understanding of the
archive precisely in order to stifle curiosity and reduce the likelihood that pres-
sure would be brought to bear to open its doors. The ICRC also restricted the
information that was available to member states of the International Commis-
sion, information that might have motivated Commission members to act
soonerthantheydid,andevenrecruitedwell-knownspecialists,someofwhom
had enjoyed privileged personal access to the archive, to reinforce the notion
ix
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