The head of the Israel Purchasing Mission in Germany, Dr. F. E. Shinnar, has for the current three months assumed the chairmanship of the international commission supervising the International Tracing Service archives at Arolsen, where ten million documents and twenty million index cards recording the fate of concentration camp prisoners are stored and catalogued.
Dr. Shinnar is away from Germany until the end of the month. During his absence, Israel is being represented by Yeshayahu Anug, chief of the Consular Section and press attache of the Purchasing Mission in Cologne. The sessions of the International Commission are also attended by the permanent Israel liaison officer in Arolsen, Dr. K. Sella.
About a year ago, the tracing service was transferred to the custody of the International Red Cross and of a Swiss director under the terms of a five-year agreement. In the North Hesse town of Arolsen, a staff of more than 200 is engaged in answering some 10,000 queries a month concerned with the certification of concentration camp imprisonment for indemnification purposes, the reunion of families separated by Nazi persecution and questions of personal status. The archives were founded by UNRRA shortly after the war and later carried on by the Allied High Commission.
The International Commission, which is nominally the policy-making and supervisory body, is composed of delegates from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Benelux countries, Israel and German Federal Republic. Since Israel follows Germany in the alphabetical listing of participating nations. Dr. Shinnar has now taken over the top post from West German representative Dr. Hardo Brueckner, of the Bonn Foreign Office.
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