Insights into our work

Whether it is a search in connection with the Second World War or due to current migration, or advice on family reunification, the personal stories behind the tracing requests that reach the GRC Tracing Service may vary greatly. But they always have one thing in common: relatives who do not want to give up hope for redeeming certainty or for a happy reunion with their family and who tirelessly strive for clarification of fate and unification; often across many national borders.

The success stories of the Tracing Service's work encourage other affected persons. They help as many people as possible to make use of the services of the GRC Tracing Service and to find their relatives, to be in contact with them or to live together again.

Here you will find some success stories about the work of the GRC Tracing Service and interesting facts about our activities in Germany and in the field of international cooperation.

Success Stories

Heidi Büttner

"My heart is lighter now." - Heidi Büttner was able to clarify the fate of her father.

afete T.

For most people, one’s parents or children are just a walk, a short trip or a phone call away. However, not for Tafete T. from Ethiopia, whose father suddenly disappeared from his life without a…

© Henning Schacht / DRK

For decades Heinrich Evers was regarded as “missing in the East 1944”. This is what it says on the back of a bracelet pendant which belongs to Lara Rading's grandmother. “I still remember exactly how…

Happy family reunification

Through the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Libya, the GRC Tracing Service received the urgent request of a Palestinian family from Syria: The mother with four…

[Translate to Englisch:]

There is almost no family in Germany who has not been affected by the war. In my family too, one son did not return home ´- my cousin Sebastian Eitermoser.

[Translate to Englisch:] Siedlung in Odessa

On this page, we describe a DRK tracing service family reunion, using the Schmidt family as an example. The names have been changed for data protection reasons.