Page of

Page/

  • Reference
  • Intro
Show/hide all markersMarkers
Zoom

Linkes KästchenT/D AkteRechtes KästchenEntnommen am

Each time ITS employees took documents out of the postwar card file, they filled out what was known as an out slip. The documents they removed were used to respond to inquiries about the person named on the card.

While there were only four pieces of information on the left side of the cards in the 1950s – the person’s name, date and place of birth, and the number of the correspondence file (T/D file) created by the ITS – the cards from the 1960s also had spaces for the person’s birth name and parents’ names. The meaning of the cards was always the same, however.

Each time ITS employees took documents out of the postwar card file, they filled out what was known as an out slip. The documents they removed were used to respond to inquiries about the person named on the card.

While there were only four pieces of information on the left side of the cards in the 1950s – the person’s name, date and place of birth, and the number of the correspondence file (T/D file) created by the ITS – the cards from the 1960s also had spaces for the person’s birth name and parents’ names. The meaning of the cards was always the same, however.

Background information on DP documents

Further examples

Questions and answers

  • Where was the document used and who created it?

    ITS out slips are cards that were created by ITS employees and placed as a reference in the postwar card file (Nachkriegszeitkartei, Collection 3.1.1.1) whenever DP documents about an individual were removed.

  • When was the document used?

    Most of the ITS out slips that have been preserved come from the 1950s and 1960s. They can be identified not only by the date, but also by their design. While there were only four pieces of information on the left side of the cards in the 1950s – the person’s name, date and place of birth, and the number of the correspondence file (T/D file) created by the ITS – the cards from the 1960s also had spaces for the person’s birth name and parents’ names. Out slips were produced at the ITS until the early 1990s. When the collections began to be digitized in 1998/1999, the out slips became unnecessary. This is because multiple ITS employees could finally access the same document simultaneously on a computer and no longer needed to remove original documents from the postwar card file.

  • What was the document used for?

    Before the collections were digitized, ITS employees would have to remove original documents from the archive in order to provide information about a missing person. The danger here was that other employees who might be searching for the same person would not be able to find the DP documents that had been taken from the postwar card file. In the worst-case scenario, this second inquiry about the person would return a negative result. To prevent this from happening, ITS employees would place out slips in the card file as a reference. On these slips, they noted which documents they had removed and in which T/D file they had placed them.

  • How common is the document?

    In principle, these cards should no longer exist because the documents that were removed should have been replaced after being used. Once the documents had been filed again, the out slip was taken out and torn up. However, the slips can still occasionally be found in the postwar card file, though their precise number is not known.

  • What should be considered when working with the document?

    When the ITS began digitizing the postwar card file, some of the original documents referred to by the out slips were still in the correspondence files (T/D files) or – in the case of documents for children – in the child search files. For several years, employees have been checking the T/D files, removing the original documents from them and scanning them. When the scanned documents are then re-filed in the postwar card file, the out slips are removed and deleted from the digital archive. However, for a period of time, the scanned documents were automatically re-filed and the out slips were not removed. Therefore, an out slip can sometimes be found together with the re-filed cards.

    It is important to remember that the out slips are not documents that were filled out for the DPs in the postwar period, even though they are found in the postwar card file. They were purely an aid to support the work of ITS employees.

    If you have any additional information about these cards, we would appreciate it very much if you could send your feedback to eguide@arolsen-archives.org. New findings can always be incorporated into the e-Guide and shared with everyone.

Help for documents

About the scan of this document <br> Markings on scan <br> Questions and answers about the document <br> More sample cards <br> Variants of the document