Abstract

In May 1945, some 15 million people in Germany were missing; an estimated half-million children did not know where their parents were. This was the birth hour of numerous tracing services, which went on to register astounding successes. By 1950, only 2.5 million people were still reported missing in the Federal Republic. (Although even today the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, run initially by UNRRA and the IRO, receives over 1,000 requests a month for information from its archive about the as yet not completely clarified fates of victims of the Nazis, including missing children from that time.) Thanks to the efforts of the children’s tracing service of the magazine Pinguin and the Bavarian Red Cross, this mother found her child and collected her from an orphanage (1946).

Children’s Tracing Services: A Success Story (1946)

  • Hilmar Pabel

Source

Source: As a result of the children’s tracing service of the magazine “Pinguin” and the Bavarian Red Cross, a mother has found her child again and is now picking it up from the orphanage. Photo: Hilmar Pabel.
bpk-Bildagentur, image number 30008860. For rights inquiries, please contact Art Resource at requests@artres.com (North America) or bpk-Bildagentur at kontakt@bpk-bildagentur.de (for all other countries).

© bpk