Nazi Persecution and Postwar Repercussions

Suzanne Brown-Fleming is director of International Academic Programs at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

• ForewordAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsChapter One: The International Tracing Service Holdings Chapter Two: ‘Our Mothers, Our Fathers:’ LahnsteinChapter Three: Jewish VoicesChapter Four: Hour Zero: The Year 1945Chapter Five: Imagining the RefugeeAppendix I: The International Tracing Service Holdings by SubunitAppendix II: Finding Aids for the International Tracing Service HoldingsBibliographyIndex

More than 60 years after the end of World War II, roughly 150 million documents were gradually released to researchers. This evidence cataloged the fates of millions of Jews and other Europeans victimized by Nazi Germany. The International Tracing Service archive yielded concentration camp records, transport and deportation lists, arrest vouchers, prison files, displaced persons and slave-labor documents (implicating scores of corporate, government, and military entities in the use and abuse of forced labor), and a chronicle of inquiries from millions of survivors and extended family members scattered around the world attempting to uncover information about murdered loved ones. More than a half century was required to open the archive; Paul Shapiro, director of the Holocaust Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, tells that story in the foreword. Brown-Fleming, senior coordinator of programs at the center, modestly describes this volume as a brief ‘point of entry into a complex collection.’ The resource is utterly invaluable to libraries supporting Holocaust research and any scholar or legal expert aiming to reconstruct at the micro-level the experiences of individuals brutalized by Nazi Germany. Sharing a rich cross section of the archive's vast holdings, the author also explains the manner in which the materials are organized into sub-units. Summing Up:Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty; professionals/practitioners.