Rebecca Boehling, professor of history and director of the Dresher Center for the Humanities, has been named the next Director of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany. The ITS serves victims of Nazi persecutions and their families by documenting their fate through the archives it manages.

Boehling was appointed unanimously by the eleven-member state International Commission, which supervises the work of the ITS, at its annual meeting in Paris last week. She will take a leave of absence from UMBC and begin her directorship on January 1, 2013.

Boehling is an expert in the history of the Holocaust, World War II and the early postwar period in Germany. She served for several years on the Historical Advisory Panel to the U.S. Government’s Interagency Working Group for the Implementation of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Federal Disclosure Act, tasked to declassify material related to WWII war crimes.

“The treasure trove of documents in the ITS archives reveals new insights into the experience and the perspectives of the victims of Nazi persecution. It is very compelling material that we want to make more accessible for research and educational purposes by means of digitization and archival description,” she said. Boehling said that she hopes to develop internships and research opportunities for UMBC students, especially with the displaced persons files, which are mostly in English.

Read more about Boehling’s appointment here.