Project Search

The American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay provides assistance for family members to trace the fate of their loved ones who are either long-missing or feared dead since the end of World War II. While the search most often helps bring closure to years of searching, tracing activities in a few cases have revealed that the sought-for person has survived. When this occurs, family members and friends have been united with the help of the American Red Cross.

Background

The Red Cross has been providing tracing for victims of World War II and the Nazi regime since 1939. The release of documents from Auschwitz and other camps from the former Soviet Union to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1989 provided the impetus to create a specialized unit to serve as a national clearing house for processing Holocaust inquiries in the United States. The Holocaust and War Victims Tracing and Information Center, based in Baltimore, Maryland, serves as the specialized unit of the American Red Cross International Social Services program. It has access to the new cache of documents, which include 46 death books and hundreds of thousands of names. Through the Holocaust and War Victims Tracing and Information Center, inquiries are processed from persons seeking the fates of loved ones missing since the Holocaust, including those inquiries initiated from local Red Cross chapters such as the American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay. The Holocaust and War Victims Tracing and Information Center links the person making a tracing request in the U.S. with the tracing resources of the International Red Cross movement through its national societies throughout the world and the International Tracing Service (ITS) located in Arolsen, Germany. Administered by the ICRC, the ITS is the largest repository of Nazi documentation in the world. More than 30,000 inquiries from individuals seeking information about loved ones missing since the Holocaust and World War II have been registered by the Center since its opening in 1990.