Tracing Without Records: Hungarian Forced Labourers, Kőszeg, and the International Tracing Service

After the Holocaust, the International Tracing Service (ITS) sought to create a catalogue of sites where people had been imprisoned, as they received requests from survivors for certifications needed to process compensation claims. For many small sites across Europe, however, little to no documentary evidence existed. This article explores how the ITS responded to this challenge, arguing that the ITS – now the Arolsen Archives – constitutes an evolving, self-creating archive that generated documentation to fill blind spots. This process changes the nature of the archive, as it is not only a repository for Nazi-era documentation but, also, a growing, research-based collection of interactions with that material. By analysing documents the ITS created about labour servicemen in the Hungarian town of Kőszeg, this article argues that researchers need to be aware of the provenance of these collections and how they are liable to the same limitations as personal memories of the Holocaust.