Nature of Source
Introduction to Holocaust Records
Researching Holocaust records can be a sensitive challenge for those tracing ancestors who perished in the camps and were victims or survivors of Nazi persecution. This guide is an overview of key records and resources that can help you uncover the fates of individuals during this catastrophic period.
Concentration and Death Camp Records
Nazi concentration camps were established shortly after the Nazis rose to power in Germany in 1933. During the Holocaust, millions of Jews, along with homosexuals, Romani people (Gypsies), the mentally ill, the disabled, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, were persecuted and murdered in Nazi concentration and death camps. While many of the records were destroyed, documents captured by Allied Forces are accessible and many records are emerging from Russian archives. Together these records offer an insight into the lives of those who perished during the holocaust.
Key Points of Research
Deportation Lists
These lists detail individuals sent to concentration and extermination camps. However, those sent to extermination camps were often summarily murdered upon arrival, without their names being recorded. Some individuals on a deportation list may have somehow evaded deportation or escaped.
Massacre Records
Groups like the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) often recorded massacres without listing victims’ names. Researching the holocaust history of an individual’s or family’s last known residence can offer clues about possible deportation destinations. Jews in rural areas were typically exiled to larger communities in neighbouring towns or cities.
Chronology of Deportations
The German Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives) provides a chronology of deportations from Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, detailing dates, numbers of people, arrival dates and destinations. The Memorial Book is available at the Archives website.
The 1939 German Minority (Jewish) Census
The Volkszählung census of 1939 is a valuable tool for identifying individuals and families before deportation. Conducted on May 17 1939, it includes names, birth dates, places of birth, which of the person’s four grandparents were Jewish, as well as the person’s higher education level. Records are organized alphabetically by town and surname within each district (Kreis). The census is available online at MyHeritage or at LDS FamilySearch Centers.
Finding Aid:
Edlund, Thomas Kent (compiler). The German Minority Census of 1939: An Introduction and Register. Avotaynu, 1996.
Memorial and Yizkor Books
Post-WWII memorial books were compiled to commemorate victims of the Holocaust. The German government’s 1968 two-volume ‘Gedenkbuch: Memorial Book for the German victims of the Holocaust also includes non-German Jews resident in Germany. Initially covering West Germany, revisions includes the former East Germany and is available online at the Federal Archives website. Many others have been produced covering other territories or are being planned. Yizkor books, which commemorate destroyed Jewish communities throughout Europe, are another invaluable resource and have a separate entry in the GenGuide.
Arolsen Archives (International Tracing Service)
The Arolsen Archives (formerly the International Tracing Service) holds the world’s most comprehensive archive on victims and survivors of National Socialism. The searchable collections include:
- The Central Name Index which contains information on about 17.5 million victims of Nazi persecution and other special collections.
- Records of prisoners, forced labourers and children.
- Registration cards of all persons in Germany classified as Jews taken in 1941.
- Deportation lists and personal documents, including individual prisoner cards and death notices from concentration camps, ghettos and Nazi penal institutions.
A digital copy of the Arolsen Archives can be consulted at the Wiener Library in London, which also offers research services for those unable to visit in person.
Kindertransport
The Kindertransport was a rescue operation authorised and supported by the British government in collaboration with humanitarian organisations and private citizens. The initiative allowed around 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children under the age of 17 to settle in Great Britain. The children arrived from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia with the help of Jewish and Quaker groups and ran from 1938 to 1940. Parents and guardians were refused entry and many thousands of Jewish children were denied entry into Palestine by the British government. After the war many became citizens of Britain and others settled in the US, Canada, Australia and Israel. Many converted to Christianity. The records are now held by World Jewish Relief.
See also
Jewish Records
Jewish Registers
Yizkor Books & Shtetl Records
Where Found
Yad Vashem
The World Holocaust Remembrance Center: The Yad Vashem Library is the world’s most comprehensive collection of published material about the Holocaust. The Center houses the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names amongst other databases. The Yad Vashem Library catalogue is available here and the Yad Vashem Photo Collections allows users to search the largest collections of photographs relating to the Holocaust in the world.
The Wiener Holocaust Library
The World’s Oldest Holocaust Memorial Institution. Holdings include Memorial Books and lists of survivors compiled after the war within the Displaced Person Camps; Digital copy of the International Tracing Service Archive; Kindertransport documentation; Gravestone inscriptions from Jewish cemeteries; Pre-war telephone directories for cities such as Berlin, Vienna and Prague; Refugee Family Papers; Newspapers and journals.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Museum is America’s national institution for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. The collection of artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories and more can be searched here. The Photo Archives Online collection spans the period from the end of World War I to the early 1950s. Other resources include the Holocaust Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. The Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database. contains records on people persecuted during World War II. Resources on Survivors and Victims provides information on family history research relating to the Holocaust and helps you explore the Museum’s collections about individual survivors and victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution.
Museum of Jewish Heritage
A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. The Museum is committed to the crucial mission of educating visitors about Jewish life before, during and after the Holocaust. The museum features documents, textiles, Judaica, toys, musical instruments, diaries and memoirs, posters and other visual materials.
Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain (The society promotes the preservation of Jewish genealogical records and resources and dedicated to promoting and supporting Jewish genealogical research in the United Kingdom. The library includes a selection of Memorial Books.
London School of Jewish Studies
The LSJS Library is home to over 70,000 volumes of Judaica and Hebraica and includes a collection of holocaust related material including Memorial Books.
Parkes Library
University of Southampton. The Holocaust collections includes histories of the Holocaust, diaries and testimonies of victims and survivors, historiography of the Holocaust and Memorial Books.
House of the Wannsee Conference
The centre is a memorial and educational site offering educational programs to learn about the history of the persecution and murder of European Jews and the history of National Socialism. The Joseph Wulf Library holdings include research literature, reference works, memorial books and eyewitness accounts relating to the history and culture of European Jewry and persecution and murder of the Jews in Europe.
Period Covered
1933 – 1945
Genealogical Value
- Names, ages, dates and places of birth.
- Occupations
- Dates and places of death.
- Family relationships.
- Dates of and places of deportation.
Further References
- Grenville, Anthony. Jewish Refugees from Germany and Austria in Britain, 1933-1970: Vallentine Mitchell, 2009
- Hlavinka, Jan. The Holocaust in Slovakia: The Story of the Jews of Medzilaborce District: Avotaynu, 2011
- Issroff, Saul. The Holocaust in Lithuania 1941-1945: A Book of Remembrance: Gefen Publishing, 2002
- Hundert, Gershon David (ed). The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe: Yale University Press, 2008 (The online version is available at The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe)
- Megargee, Geoffrey P. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933 – 1945: Indiana University Press, 2012 (Preview available from Google Books)
- Mokotoff, Gary. How to Document Victims and Locate Survivors of the Holocaust: Avotaynu, 1995
- Schoenberg, Nancy and Stuart. Lithuanian Jewish Communities: Garland Pub, 1991 (Online digitised format available at Archive.org)
Spector, Shmuel & Wigoder, Geoffrey. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust: New York University Press, 2001 (Selected pages are available to view online at Google Books) - Stone, Dan. The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath; Yale University Press, 2015
Wenzerul, Rosemary. Tracing your Jewish Ancestors:A Guide for Family Historians: Pen and Sword Books, 2014
Websites
Organisations
The Association of Jewish Refugees
The national charity provides social and welfare services to Jewish Holocaust refugees and survivors living in Great Britain. Relatives are also welcome as members including spouses, children (second-generation), grandchildren (third generation) and so on.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Resources on Survivors and Victims. Explore resources that ensures the individual experiences of survivors and victims of the Holocaust and Nazi-era persecution are collected, preserved, and disseminated for future generations.
National Holocaust Centre & Museum
The National museum in the UK is dedicated to Holocaust education, remembrance, and research. The Centre provides resources, exhibitions and events to help visitors understand the history and lessons of the Holocaust.
Leo Baeck Institute London
The Institute preserves the history and of German-speaking Jewry. Other centres can be found in New York and Jerusalem. The collections can be searched online and include personal documents, correspondence, family and community histories, memoirs and manuscripts, genealogical materials, business records and photographs.
World Jewish Relief
The organisation has the names of over 315,000 people, as well as records for the 65,000 refugees we supported in the 1930s and 40s. The archive include files for people who came from Germany and Austria, including many of the 10,000 children who came on the Kindertransport, as well as men who came to the Kitchener camp, 732 child survivors from concentration camps known as The Boys and countless others who arrived on domestic visas or under guarantors. If you think we might have records for your family, enquire by using the online form.
Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Museum houses a specialised book collection, pre-war maps and street plans, photographs, family memorabilia and other resources detailing the history of Polish Jews. The library has old books, print publications and periodicals. The museum also operates The Virtual Shtetl which provides information on pre-war Jewish life in Polish villages, towns and cities and the Polish Righteous project which documents the stories of Poles who helped Jews during World War II.
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
The Archives include includes original German camp records, memoirs, accounts by former prisoners, photographs and documentary films. The archives section hosts a database of the partially preserved records of Auschwitz prisoners. The full catalogue of the Auschwitz Museum Library is available online.
Tracing the Past
The organisation based in Berlin, Germany is dedicated to the research and memorialisation of the persecuted in Europe 1933-1945. Projects include ‘Mapping the Lives’ a Biographical Encyclopedia and Atlas of the Persecuted in Europe 1933-1945 and the 1939 German Minority Census.
Yahad – In Unum
Yahad – In Unum is the leading research organisation investigating the mass executions of more than 2 million Jews and tens of thousands Roma/Gypsy people during the Holocaust in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The organisation operates www.yahadmap.org an interactive map showing execution sites located by Yahad teams at which the Nazis and their allies murdered Jews in towns and villages throughout Eastern Europe.
Buchenwald Memorial
The aim of the foundation is to preserve the sites of the crimes as sites of mourning and commemoration. The website has numerous photographs of the camps and alphabetical lists of victims.
Jewish Historical Institute
The mission of the Institute is to spread knowledge about the heritage of the thousand years of Jewish presence on the Polish lands and to help Jews discover their Polish roots.
Foundation for Jewish Heritage
The organisation is dedicated to the preservation of Jewish architectural sites, historic synagogues, Jewish monuments and places of cultural significance. The Foundation’s project ‘Mapping the Historic Synagogues of Europe’ seeks to create an inventory of every historic synagogues that exist today across the whole of Europe.
Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
The aim of H.E.A.R.T is to inform and educate people about the Holocaust and the extermination programs conducted by the Nazi regime throughout Europe during the Second World War.
Institute of National Remembrance
German death camps and concentration camps in Nazi occupied Poland 1939-45. The educational portal of the Institute of National Remembrance presents basic information on the death and concentration camps established by the Third German Reich in occupied Poland during World War II.
Israel Science and Technology Directory
International Directory of Jewish Museums.
Research
Jewish Virtual Library
Holocaust Wing. Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents. Topics covered include the history and background, the implementation of the Holocaust and the aftermath and legacy.
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
Holocaust Resource Center
Yad Vashem. The Center provides a comprehensive online hub for anyone interested in learning about the Holocaust. It provides a wide range of materials, including: Historical overviews, a timeline which details major events that occurred before, during and immediately after the Holocaust and a Holocaust Lexicon of terms and topics.
The Holocaust Explained
Wiener Holocaust Library. The Holocaust Explained. is an educational website created to help learners, particularly students aged 13 to 18, understand the essential facts of the Holocaust, its causes, and its consequences. The site is designed with the British school curriculum in mind but is accessible to a wider audience, including teachers and the general public. Content is supported by hundreds of primary sources from the Library’s unique archive, including documents, photographs, maps and diagrams.
Wiener Holocaust Library
Testifying to the Truth: Eyewitnesses to the Holocaust. The site offers eyewitness survivor accounts to Nazi persecution and genocide covering a wide range of subjects with material touching on almost every aspect of the Holocaust.
The Wiener Holocaust Library
Refugee Map: Documents from the Library. The map visually traces refugee journeys with documents from our collections, including handwritten diaries, photograph albums, identity and emigration papers, Red Cross letters and taped interviews.
Ordinary Objects Extraordinary Journeys
The site focusses on the experiences of Jews, Roma and Sinti people during the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945. The site retraces the steps of six people whose lives were irreversibly altered during the Holocaust. Detailed descriptions of major concentration camps such as Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Hartheim Castle, and Dachau are provided.
Yad Vashem
Online Guide of Murder Sites of Jews in the Former USSR. The guide includes the sites where Jews were murdered in the Former USSR during World War II. The guides provides concise information on the location of murder sites, the identity of the perpetrators, the number of victims and how the Jews were murdered in Belarus and Ukraine.
Yad Vashem
The Untold Stories. The site documents and commemorates the mass murder sites of Jews from Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and Moldova in the territories of the former USSR during the Holocaust.
ManyRoads
Shoah-Holocaust Free Research Help. The site offers a guide to assist individuals conducting research on the Holocaust (Shoah). It offers pointers and information to help users navigate the complex landscape of Holocaust research.
ManyRoads
The site provides genealogical and historical source documents and helpful research resources for conducting German, Prussian, Polish, Jewish, Mennonite research.
Holocaust Survivors
The site serves as a platform to share and preserve the personal stories and histories of Holocaust survivors offering access to survivor testimonies, educational material and historical context about the Holocaust period
YahadMap
Execution Sites of Jewish Victims. The YahadMap is an interactive map and educational resource identifying and documenting the sites of mass executions of Jews and other victims by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II, primarily in Eastern Europe.
European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
The EHRI portal offers access to information on Holocaust-related archival material held in institutions across Europe and beyond. The site has an overview of the Second World War and Holocaust history and finding aids for Holocaust-related archival materials.
Imperial War Museum
The Holocaust Galleries. The Galleries incorporate the most up to date research and evaluation, including archive material only available since the end of the Cold War, and reflect the latest developments in Holocaust education, academia and understanding.
Center for Jewish History
Research Guides. The site offers research guides covering a number of topics such as Starting Your Family History Research, Synagogue Records, Holocaust Research, Jewish Names, and Finding an Ancestral Town.
STOLPERSTEIN
Stumbling stones or blocks. The site has information on the commemorative brass plaques in the pavement commemorating the last known dwellings of the Jewish people in at least 1200 places in Germany and across Europe.
JewishGen
The Forgotten Camps. Explore histories and information on the extermination and concentration camps including details of less well known camps.
JewishGen
Yizkor Book Database. This database attempts to list all Yizkor Books known to exist, as well as many other books written about a particular community.
JewishGen
Communities Database and JewishGen Gazetteer. The database contains information on about 6,000 Jewish communities in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East and lists each community’s name in various languages.
Virtual Shtetl
Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The site provides information on pre-war Jewish life in Polish villages, towns and cities including details of their various names, changes in sovereignty and population counts.
Geni
Holocaust: ‘The Final Solution’. The project is structured to help users add profiles of individuals affected by the Holocaust to relevant sub-projects, such as those for specific concentration camps or ghettos. The project includes documents and media and profiles of camps.
fold3
Holocaust Collection. The site aims to preserve and provide access to primary source documents, photographs, and records from the Holocaust era with Holocaust victims and survivors and a map with profiles of every major camp.
Museum of Family History
World Holocaust Memorials. The webpage presents information and photographic documentation of Holocaust memorials located around the world, with a particular focus on Europe, including countries such as Austria, Belarus, the Czech Republic and Lithuania, among others.
Museum of Family History
The Holocaust. The site provides information about the Holocaust and is dedicated to honouring and preserving the memory of Jewish individuals and. It also features memorials and resources related to the Holocaust, including information about concentration.
Tsal Kaplun Foundation
The Holocaust. The foundation collects and shares Jewish genealogical records and related information from archives of the former Soviet Union and former USSR territories. The site has a number of resources and guides relating to Shtetls, Jewish surname origins, anti-Jewish violence including pogroms and the Holocaust and lists of relevant documents held by a variety of archives.
USC Shoah Foundation
Visual History Archive. The site serves as a digital platform hosting over 55,000 video testimonies from survivors and witnesses of genocide, crimes against humanity and related persecution, including the Holocaust.
Routes to Routes Foundation
A Genealogical and Family History Guide. The site offers a guide to the Jewish records and civil records such as vital records, census returns and voter lists held in the archives of Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland and Ukraine. The Archive Database allows searches for individual places showing the material available with guides to accessing the material.
Lo Tishkach Foundation
European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative. The organisation dedicated to the preservation and protection of Jewish cemeteries and mass graves across Europe. Their mission is to ensure that these important sites of Jewish heritage and memory are maintained, respected, and not forgotten or destroyed. Resources include a comprehensive database of some 11061 European Jewish cemeteries, burial grounds and mass graves
HaChayim HaYehudim
Jewish Photo Library. Image library featuring synagogues, cemeteries and Holocaust memorials from around the world.
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
YIVO is a major resource for Jewish genealogical research, especially for those tracing Eastern European Jewish ancestry. The site offers a comprehensive range of resources and services dedicated to the history, culture and genealogy of Ashkenazi Jews, with a special focus on Eastern European Jewish communities. Its holdings include extensive archival collections such as manuscripts, documents, photographs, films, sound recordings, and artifacts related to Jewish life and history. Many of YIVO’s resources are available online.
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. The encyclopedia provides the most complete picture of the history and culture of Jews in Eastern Europe from the beginnings of their settlement in the region to the present. It provides accurate, reliable, scholarly information about East European Jewish life.
Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance
The Document Centre. The centre houses a library and an archive of holocaust related material and other material detailing Nazi persecution.
Defending History
Based in Vilnius, Lithuania the organisation defends the history of the Holocaust, focussing on focused on issues of Holocaust remembrance, historical truth, antisemitism and Jewish heritage in Lithuania and Eastern Europe. The site has resources for studying the Holocaust in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, including a reading list, interactive online map and place-name list for Lithuania.
Joods Monument
The site serves as an online memorial dedicated to the 104,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust from the Netherlands. It provides a comprehensive digital archive and remembrance site, focusing on the individuals and families who were persecuted and murdered during World War II. A searchable database is available to find names, families, and addresses of Dutch Jews who were killed during the Holocaust.
MyHeritage Wiki
Holocaust records. The site provides resources for genealogists and researchers seeking to identify and verify the existence of family members affected by the Holocaust.
MyHeritage Wiki
The Holocaust. The site is a comprehensive guide and resource related to the Holocaust providing historical context and factual information
FamilyTree
7 Holocaust Records Resources for Genealogists, by Melody Amsel-Arieli.
Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
The best websites for finding Holocaust records. We look at the websites where you can trace the records of family members who were killed in the Holocaust.
ThoughtCo
Essential Facts About the Holocaust, by Jennifer Rosenberg
ThoughtCo
12 Free Jewish Genealogy Databases Online. The site offers a selected list and overview of some of the best free online resources and databases specifically for Jewish genealogy and Holocaust research.
British Library
Jewish Survivors of the Holocaust. An online collection of over 280 in-depth Holocaust survivors’ testimonies.
Online Databases
Europe-Wide
Yad Vashem
The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names. Yad Vashem, together with its partners, has collected and recorded the names and biographical details of millions of victims of systematic anti-Jewish persecution during the Holocaust Shoah period. The database contains the details of close to four and a half million of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices
Yad Vashem
Shoah Related Lists Database. The database contains various lists of names from the Shoah period. The database includes lists of names of many different groups of people, including victims and perpetrators. The database includes lists held by Yad Vashem and those held by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Yad Vashem
Holocaust Deportation Database: ‘Transports to Extinction’. The database reconstructs the deportations of the Jews carried out by the German Nazi regime and its collaborators during the Holocaust. Search by name or place of transports of Jews from their homes to locations beyond the borders of the countries in which they lived or to ghettoes and camps inside their home country between 1939 and 1945
Yad Vashem
Potential Holocaust Era Insurance Policyholders. This list is provided for research purposes compiled by the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.
MyHeritage
MyHeritage has partnered with a number of archives and resources to provide records relating to the Holocaust, including JewishGen and the Museum of Jewish Heritage. These records may include individuals’ names, biographical details, photographs, and information about the submitters. Some collections of interest include:
- Jewish Holocaust Memorials and Jewish Residents of Germany 1939-1945
- German Minority Census, 1939
- Germany Dachau Concentration Camp Records
- World Jewish Congress Records of Holocaust Survivors
- Yizkor Book Name Index
- Germany, Revoked Citizenships and Property Seizures
- Austria, Vienna, Jewish Emigrant Applications, 1938-1939.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum
World Memory Project. The project is a collaboration between the Holocaust Memorial Museum and Ancestry and aims to be the world’s largest online resource for information on Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of non-Jews who were targeted for persecution by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. The site allows the public to search victims’ records online. The project allows anyone, anywhere to type information from historical records into databases that will be made searchable online for free.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database. This database centralizes information from the Museum’s collections about individual survivors and victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution. The database contains millions of names indexed from various lists and historical documents in the Museum’s extensive archival collection.
JewishGen
Holocaust Database. The site offers a unique and critically valuable collection of databases which contain information about Holocaust victims and survivors. More than 5.9 million records are available in this continually updated collection, which includes Camp Records, Transport Lists, Name Lists, and a multitude of other record types.
The Wiener Holocaust Library
Wiener Digital Collections. The site provides online access to digitised collections from The Wiener Holocaust Library, with material related to pre-war Jewish life, the Nazi era and the Holocaust. Users can explore historical documents like letters, photographs, press clippings, books, manuscripts, posters, artwork, and testimonies. The digital collections highlight some of the most important items.
Ancestry
Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971. This free collection consists of passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports. The majority of those listed are Holocaust survivors and former concentration camp inmates as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries. The dataset is published in association with the Arolsen Archives, formerly known as the International Tracing Service)
Ancestry
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Free access to indexes of four museum collections including:
- Ain, France, Selected Holocaust Records,1940-1944
- Czechoslovakia, Jewish Applications for Social Welfare After WWII
- Czechoslovakia, Jews Deported to Terezin and Poland, 1943-1945
- Munich, Displaced Jewish Children at the Ulm Children’s Home, 1945-1948
- Great Britain, Holocaust Records From The Religious Society of Friends, 1933-1942
- UK, Selected Records Relating to Kindertransport, 1938-1939
Ancestry
Holocaust Records: Search collections of Holocaust records for free courtesy of our partners Arolsen Archives and USC Shoah Foundation. Datasets include lists of displaced persons, in most cases traveling from a resettlement camp to a final destination, often the US. Also included are registers of people living in Germany who were persecuted by public institutions and corporations covering 1939 to 1947 as well as Jewish Survivor Interviews.
Ancestry
Jewish Records-Holocaust. Free access to numerous holocaust related databases covering many European countries and including camp inmate lists, yizkor book name lists and survivor lists. Produced in association with JewishGen.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
JDC Names Database: The database includes more than 700,000 names from historic documents and client lists of those helped by JDC from 1914 to 1954. A description of the lists currently searchable in the Names Database can be found in the Lists in the Names Database.
fold3
National Archives Holocaust Records. Search scanned and indexed Holocaust records such as Holocaust-era assets to death camp records to interrogation reports from the Nuremburg trials.
Austria
Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance
Austrian Victims of the Holocaust. The database contains the names of more than 64,000 Austrian victims of the holocaust. Entries include victim’s name, birth date, place of death and sometimes date of death. Place of deportation from and to and the date of deportation.
GenTeam
The collection is constantly being expanded and currently contains more than 22 million entries. The free to use collection includes property registrations in Vienna from 1938 to 1945 and names from the National Fund for the Victims of National Socialism which detail property owned in Vienna by victims of the Holocaust. Many other records from the Austrian Jewish community are included.
Findbuch
Victims of National Socialism. Search for people, companies or addresses in the Austrian archives for information on National Socialist property seizures and Austrian compensation and restitution measures.
My Heritage
Austria, Vienna, Jewish Emigrant Applications, 1938-1939
Belgium
FelixArchief (Antwerp City Archives)
Search Belgium Expulsion Orders from December 1940 to February 1941. The orders were issued by the German occupying authorities transferring Jewish immigrants from Antwerp to the Belgian province of Limburg.
Kazerne Dossin
Memorial Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights. Digitised and searchable lists of jews transported from the Mechelen transit camp (Dossin barracks) in Belgium to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Vittel and Bergen-Belsen. The site also hosts a collection of unnamed photos of deported victims
Czech Republic
Beit Theresienstadt (Terezin)
Theresienstadt Martyrs Remembrance Association. The Association was established in Israel in memory of the Jewish Martyrs of Ghetto Theresienstadt. The archive also holds an index of the 162,000 Jews from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark and other European countries, who were imprisoned in the Ghetto.
Ancestry
Prague, Czechoslovakia, Selected Holocaust Records, 1939-1945 (USHMM). This collection consists of records generated by German occupational institutions and Czech auxiliary agencies who dealt with matters of internal security and racial policy, especially anti-Jewish measures, during World War II. This collection was indexed by World Memory Project from the digitized holdings of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Institut Terezínské iniciativy
Database of the Victims. The database contains lists of about 80 000 Jewish victims imprisoned at Theresienstadt/Terezín concentration camp and later deported to the extermination camps. Details include names, dates of birth, dates of deportation to extermination camp and dates of death. The database does not contain information on survivors. The ‘Database of the Digitized Documents’ contains digitised archival documents including death certificates, identity cards and individual photographs.
France
CNRS Sciences humaines & sociales
Territoires et Trajectoires de la Déportation des Juifs de France. Les enfants Juifs de Paris déportés de Juillet 1942 à Août 1944: Les enfants Juifs déportés depuis la FRANCE de Juillet 1942 à Août 1944.
Germany
My Heritage
Datasets include:
- Germany, Revoked Citizenships & Property Seizures
- Germany, Dachau Concentration Camp Records from JewishGen
- Germany, Flossenburg Prisoner Lists
- Jewish Holocaust Memorials and Jewish Residents of Germany 1939-1945
My Heritage
German Minority Census, 1939. This collection contains the names of all individuals listed in the 1939 census of Germany who lived in a household where at least one person in the household had a Jewish grandparent.
JewishGen Germany Collection
Datasets include:
- Jewish Families of Northern Germany
- The Hessen Gatermann Index, which contains more than 31,500 Jewish records from northern and eastern Hessen.
- Aufbau Survivors Lists
- Jews in Würzburg, 1900-1945
- The 1933 German Towns Project
- Yizkor Book Necrologies
- JewishGen Holocaust Database
- Online Worldwide Burial Registry
Buchenwald Memorial
Buchenwald Concentration Camp – Book Of The Dead. The commemorative book of the Buchenwald concentration camp is dedicated to the more than 56,000 dead and their families. Not included in this count are the thousands who were deported from Buchenwald and died in other concentration camps.
Ancestry
Holocaust Records From The Religious Society of Friends, 1933-1942 (USHMM). This database is an index of committee minutes and correspondence as well as eyewitness reports from Germany from the Friends Committee for Refugees and Aliens. This collection was indexed by World Memory Project contributors from the digitized holdings of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Ancestry
Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947. This collection consists of foreigners and German persecutees in Germany between 1939-1947 who were persecuted by public institutions, social securities and companies. The records originate from the American, British, French and Soviet Zones of Occupation. Free access to these documents has been made possible through partnership with the Arolsen Archives.
Mapping the Lives
The project is dedicated to creating biographies and residential street addresses of all known persecuted victims of the Nazi regime, the majority of whom are German Jews. The data has been extracted from entries from the supplementary cards of the 1939 German minority census which contains the names of all of the people who lived in the household where one or more people in the household had a minimum of one Jewish grandparent.
Findmypast
Kindertransport, 1939 to 1945. Collection of digitised government documents relating to the Kindertransport operation held by The National Archives. They mainly comprise passenger lists telling you the name of the child, their birth date and place, the date they departed Germany, name of the ship on which they travelled and their arrival port in the UK.
Findmypast
Kindertransport Browse, 1938 to 1945: Read through volumes of historic government documents related to Kindertransport, the British scheme to rescue Jewish children from Nazi occupied regions. The documents, which have been provided by The National Archives, include: Foreign Office, War Cabinet, Home Office, Education and Ministry of Health
Munich City Archives
Biographisches Gedenkbuch der Münchner Juden, 1933-1945. Online access to the digitised memorial book remembering the Jews of Munich murdered in the Holocaust.
Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen
Book of the Dead KZ Sachsenhausen 1936-1945. List with the names of more than 20,000 victims of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp including first name, date of birth, place of birth, prisoner number, date of death and place of death.
Berlin State Archive
The Online Project on the Records of the Berlin Restitution Offices. Online access to transcriptions of the indexed cards created by the Restitution Office which dealt with the restitution of property to victims of Nazi persecution. The index cards detail, the injured parties, the defendant and the affected property.
Meyers Gazetteer
The goal of the Meyer’s compilers was to list every place name in the German Empire between 1871 and 1918. Each place searched is linked to the gazetteer entry as well as showing modern and historic maps and Catholic and Protestant parishes and Synagogues in the area.
Compact Memory: German language site containing digitised and transcribed Jewish periodicals and magazines covering 1806-1839
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Compact Memory. German language site containing digitised and transcribed Jewish periodicals and magazines covering 1806-1839.
Stephen P. Morse
Searching the 1933 German Jews Database in One Step.
Stephen P. Morse
Searching the German Jewish Roof Card Collection in One Step. Indexes to individual card files of Jews who were not deported but perished or even survived within Germany.
Latvia
Center for Judaic Studies
University of Latvia: Holocaust Memorial Places in Latvia: Database and interactive map that locates Holocaust memorial sites in Latvia. The map shows the Jewish killing sites with information on each site including a brief history, location, characteristics and a reference to the related names of Jews
Center for Judaic Studies
University of Latvia: Jews of Latvia: Names and Fates, 1941 – 1945. The online database comprises all 93 479 names and approx. 50 000 recovered so far fates of Jews, who lived in Latvia on the eve of the Holocaust.
Lithuania
Lithuanian Holocaust Atlas
Detailed information on sites of mass murder of Jews in Lithuania during the Holocaust. Each site is shown on a map with precise geographical coordinates.
Dovid Katz
Litvish (Lithuania) Atlas of Northeastern Yiddish. The atlas seeks to determine the historic external borders, the internal differentiation and the cultural and linguistic structure and characteristics of Lite the territory of traditional Jewish Lithuania.
Bagnowka Project
Search and browse Jewish cemetery transcriptions and photos from Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine. Old Maps and photos are also included.
Poland
MyHeritage
Lodz Ghetto List from JewishGen. This collection contains lists of the Lodz Ghetto inhabitants from 1940 to 1944.
Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum
Auschwitz Prisoners. Database of the partially preserved Death Books (Sterbebücher) of some 69,000 Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoners registered in the camp and who died between July 29, 1941 and December 31, 1943. The great majority of the records were destroyed by the defeated SS and others are yet to be digitised.
Ancestry
Poland, Modliborzyce Ghetto Register Books, 1939-1944 (USHMM). This database contains the names of the Jewish population in the Modliborzyce Ghetto compiled by the Judenrat (Jewish Council) in Modliborzyce. This collection was indexed by World Memory Project contributors from the digitized holdings of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Ancestry
Poland, Lodz Ghetto Register Books, 1939-1944 (USHMM). This database contains details extracted from register books of streets in the Lodz Ghetto. This collection was indexed by World Memory Project contributors from the digitized holdings of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Ancestry
Lodz Ghetto Transportation Lists, 1939-1940 (USHMM). This collection contains transport lists for Jews brought to the Lodz Ghetto and those deported from the Ghetto. There are deportation lists from Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Emden, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Prague, and Vienna and Luxemburg. This collection was indexed by World Memory Project from the digitized holdings of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Ancestry
Lodz, Poland, Ghetto Hospital Death Records, 1941-1944. This database contains the names of individuals who died in the Lodz Ghetto Hospitals. This collection was transcribed by JewishGen volunteers.
The Warsaw Ghetto
The site offers a collection of facts from the history of the ghetto. Users can search for information on 32,029 people as well as information on thousands of events and places and sources from the Warsaw ghetto. An interactive plan of the ghetto enables users to view the places.
Jewish Records Indexing
Indexes to more than 6 million Jewish birth, marriage and death records from current and former territories of Poland. The database includes other types of records such as Books of Residents, censuses, army draft lists, school records, cemetery burials, Polish passports, ghetto death records, birth, marriage and death announcements in Polish newspapers.
Stephen P. Morse
Searching the Auschwitz Prisoner Photos in One Step: Index to 2,255 Auschwitz prisoner photos taken between 1941 and mid-1942.
Bagnowka Project
Search and browse Jewish cemetery transcriptions and photos from Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine. Old Maps and photos are also included.
Museum of Family History
The virtual museum is dedicated to Jewish genealogical research which includes a Holocaust section. The site includes transcribed names of burial lists from the Lódz Ghetto Cemetery.
Miscellaneous
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Our Shared Legacy: Explore a collection of documents and photographs from the World War II era detailing the work from 14 countries where JDC operated rescuing and providing relief during and after the Holocaust. The collection includes the Names Index which contains more than 500,000 names of those who received JDC aid, financial or otherwise.
CDEC Digital Library
General Index of Foreign Jews Interned in Italy 1940-1943. The index contains details of more than 15,000 German and Polish Jews as well as Jews from other Central European countries and stateless Jews arrested and interned in Italy
Genealogy Indexer
Digitised and indexed Eastern European trade and street directories including the 1932 Palestine Directory and Handbook; Warsaw business directory for 1896; Warsaw telephone directories; German business directories 1801-1987; community and personal histories; 159,000 pages of 364 Yizkor Books. A complete listing of the available directories and Yizkor Books can be found on the home page.
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Cyprus Collection. Online access to material on 53,000 Holocaust survivors confined by the British on the island of Cyprus between 1946 and 1949.
Association of Jewish Refugees
AJR Journal Archive. Online access the back catalogue of the AJR Journal, formerly AJR Information, back to the first edition in January 1946. Users can search the entire series or browse individual editions.
Cemetery Scribes
Search headstone inscriptions with photos from Jewish cemeteries throughout the UK which includes war memorials and holocaust memorials. The records include Hebrew transliterations where possible and mini family trees for each individual. Detailed history for some of the cemeteries can be found under Cemetery Histories.
The Roman Vishniac Collection
Photographs of Jewish life in pre-war Eastern Europe Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe as documented by Roman Vishniac, a Russian-born Jew who moved to Berlin in 1920. In 1947, Vishniac returned to Europe and documented Jewish displaced persons camps and the ruins of Berlin.
Yad Vashem
Digitised items and exhibits from the Yad Vashem museum, hosted by Google Arts & Culture.
CD Roms
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