Red Cross' International Tracing Service turns over names of 3.5 million Jews displaced during WWII to Yad Vashem , US Holocaust

The names of some 3.5 million people displaced after World War II have been provided to Holocaust memorial groups and museums in the United States, Israel and Poland by a recently opened archive of Nazi-era documents. The International Tracing Service of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday that it had handed over a third round of digitally copied documents to the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Warsaw-based National Institute of Remembrance. The archive, based in Bad Arolsen, Germany, said the transfer involved copies of index cards that feature the names of people who were freed from Nazi concentration and labor camps as well as prisoners of war. The move came after a meeting March 18-19 of representatives of national organizations from the member nations of the International Commission, which oversees ITS. "It is essential that we can share, thanks to the opening of the archives, our documentation on the fate suffered by the victims of the Nazi regime," said Reto Meister, the ITS director. "This will facilitate access to the information that is of such great value to the victims and their families, irrespective of whether they live in Europe, Israel or America." Paul Shapiro, director of the center for advanced Holocaust studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, said the records on refugees displaced by the war are extensive. "It's an incredibly rich resource," he said.