The International Refugee Organization (IRO) was created to help many people who became refugees and displaced persons due to World War II. The organization helped about 10 million people from 1946 to 1951 to prepare and relocate for a new life. [1]
A treaty in 1948 formally gave the IRO authority to help refugees of World War II as an agency of the United Nations. More than 25 countries were members of the IRO. Those countries were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Republic of China, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Iceland, Italy, Liberia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and Venezuela. [2]
The IRO helped people as they lived in displaced persons camps and received vocational training and orientation for resettling into new areas or countries, in addition to helping them to find their lost relatives. Once the IRO disbanded, refugees were helped by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees. [3]
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Documents of the International Refugee Organization
Displaced persons were asked to complete applications in order to be considered for support from the IRO. Most people who applied for help were Holocaust survivors, former inmates of Nazi concentration camps, forced laborers of the Nazis and escapees of the former Soviet Union. In addition to applications for assistance, the records of the IRO were applications for change of status, confirmation letters for assistance, correspondence between applicants and the IRO, memos and health records. [4]
Immigrants who maintained their IRO records well, also could have records of education program attendance and immunization. The luggage of immigrants helped by the IRO had tags stamped by the IRO before it was placed on their immigration ships.
Requesting records
Archives at the United Nations in New York, USA, contain a small portion of records on immigrants to the USA who were assisted by the IRO. Some records also can be found at U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). [5]
A large portion of records can be found online on the free database of Arolsen Archives, formerly known as International Tracing Service, in Bad Arolsen, Germany. The database is available for searching in six languages, including English.
Arolsen Archives has possessed the records since 1952. Some documents were destroyed after displaced persons and refugees immigrated to their new homeland but it is unknown how many records were destroyed before the records arrived at International Tracing Service. The IRO records were scanned in the late 1990s and posted online to the Arolsen Archives database completely by 2018. That collection has about 1.8 million records. [6]
Arolsen Archives posses IRO records that were created for displaced persons and refugees in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and England, in addition to applicants who challenged the rejections of assistance from the IRO. [7]
Those unable to find IRO records on their relatives or ancestors through Arolsen Archives or the United Nations archives, are encouraged to check records of the central national archives of the country where their relatives and ancestors had relocated after World War II.
Explore more about the International Refugee Organization
- Index of Jewish Displaced Person and Refugee Cards, 1943-1959 at MyHeritage
- Arolsen Archives- The archive has records of about 17.5 million people who suffered under the Nazi regime
- International Refugee Organization fonds at the National Archives of France
- World War II: Refugees - Informative web page of the United Nations on refugees
References
- ↑ International Refugee Organization, Wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Refugee_Organization
- ↑ International Refugee Organization, Wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Refugee_Organization
- ↑ International Refugee Organization, Britannica- https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Refugee-Organization-historical-UN-agency
- ↑ Arolsen Archives- https://digitalcollections.its-arolsen.org/030201?lang=en
- ↑ e-mail messages to Vera Miller, May 2023, United Nations Archives
- ↑ Arolsen Archives- https://digitalcollections.its-arolsen.org/030201?lang=en
- ↑ Arolsen Archives- https://digitalcollections.its-arolsen.org/030201?lang=en