Album of Personnel. “Search Bureau for Missing Persons.” Containing 53 original snapshot photographs, each captioned with name and departmental office. Compiled by the Jewish Brigade Personnel attached to the Bureau.

(HOLOCAUST).

May

(Frankfurt?)

1946

Dedicated to Col. J.R. Bowring, founder of the Bureau. Likely one of just a bare handful of copies produced.

“This album is dedicated to all members of the Search Bureau for Missing Persons, which, by the true understanding between its various nationalities, remains a proof of a lasting basis for the humane task for which it was created.” (Introduction). In 1943, the international section of the British Red Cross was asked by the Headquarters of the Allied Forces to set up a registration and tracing service for missing people. The organization was formalized on February 15, 1944 under the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces and named the Central Tracing Bureau. As the war continued, the Bureau was moved from London to Versailles, then to Frankfurt am Main, and finally to Bad Arolsen, which was considered a central location among the areas of Allied occupation and had an intact infrastructure unaffected by war. On July 1, 1947, the International Refugee Organization took over administration of the Bureau, and on January 1, 1948, the name was changed to its current “International Tracing Service.”