page_title: Bad Arolsen
section_title: Public institutions
hierarchical_section_title: Bad Arolsen / Economy and infrastructure / Public institutions
caption_attribution_description: English: Headquarters of the International Tracing Service with ICRC flag. Main purpose see article on the ITS. Deutsch: Gebäude des Internationalen Suchdienstes ITS, mit Flagge des IKRK (Leitung von 1955-2012).
context_page_description: Bad Arolsen is a small town in northern Hesse, Germany, in Waldeck-Frankenberg district. From 1655 until 1918 it served as the residence town of the Princes of Waldeck-Pyrmont and then until 1929 as the capital of the Waldeck Free State. The International Tracing Service has its headquarters in Bad Arolsen. In 2003, the town hosted the 43rd Hessentag state festival.
context_section_description: Since 1946, Bad Arolsen has been headquarters to the International Tracing Service, an organization dedicated to finding missing civilians, typically lost to family and friends as a result of war or political unrest during World War II. The institution was led and administered until December 2012 by the International Committee of the Red Cross and funded by the Federal Republic of Germany; it is now administered by the Federal republic of Germany.
  A venue for millions of documents related to the Nazi-attempted extermination of the Jewish people and others, the ITS holds vast archives of Nazi-related documents. In April 2006, German justice minister Brigitte Zypries announced that Germany would cooperate with the United States and allow survivors and historians of the Holocaust access to 47 million pages of documents, although an eleven-nation accord had to decide unanimously that this was to be done. More than 12 million of the documents have now being digitally scanned and shared with research institutions around the world. The archive fully opened when France, Italy and Greece ratified changes to the access protocol. Information kept hidden from the public since its inception was finally opened to the public in November 2007.
caption: Main building of the ITS complex
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