The fates of over 1.2 million people who went missing during World War II will likely remain unknown when the German Red Cross ends its investigation into the open cases at the end of 2023.
“We will no longer be able to resolve these fates,’’ Thomas Huber, head of the Red Cross’s tracing service, said in Munich.
The decision to halt work on the missing person cases was made in agreement with Germany’s Interior Ministry, though there is still interest in what happened to those who disappeared.
Huber said: “The German Red Cross received around 9,000 inquiries from children and grandchildren of the missing in the past year.
“For many relatives it continues to be a black spot on their family tree, we’re also actively working on these cases.”
Shortly after the end of the war, the Red Cross’s tracing service began their search for over 20 million people, while there were 2.5 million open search requests as of 1959.
Closed cases include approximately 300,000 stories of children who were registered as missing.
In 2010, two brothers were reunited after more than 60 years apart.
Hubs said: “Cases like this touch us.’’
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