Nature of Source
Memorial books written by surviving former residents of Jewish communities, towns and villages (shtetls) destroyed during the Holocaust. The accounts provide a history of destroyed communities and contain names of Jewish leaders, events, stories, photos and memories. Many include necrologies which are lists of those that died. Most books are in the mother tongue of the author and could be written in Yiddish, Hebrew, English or Polish with about half referring to Polish places. Consult Fox & Issroff for the whereabouts of individual Yizkor books (see below).
Possible sources of information that might reveal a person’s place of origin include census returns (where occasionally a specific place of birth is specified), naturalisation papers, passenger lists or Marriage Authorisation Certificates issued by the Chief Rabbi. Also consult family members for information on the origins of an ancestor.
See also
Holocaust (Shoah) Records
Jewish Records
Jewish Registers of Birth, Marriage and Death/Burial
Where Found
British Library (Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections including the Yizkor book collection)
Cambridge University Library (Memorial/yizkor books)
Leopold Muller Memorial Library (The library is part of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and based at the Clarendon Institute on Walton Street, Oxford. The library is merged with the Bodleian Libraries. The library holds the Yizkor Books collection of more than 800 memorial volumes for communities destroyed in the Holocaust, the largest set of its kind in Europe. All of the Yizkor books can be search for on the normal library catalogue, SOLO)
University College London Library (Memorial/yizkor books)
The Wiener Library Institute of Contemporary History (The World’s Oldest Holocaust Memorial Institution. Holdings include Memorial/Yizkor books and lists of survivors compiled after the war within the Displaced Person Camps; Kindertransport documentation; Gravestone inscriptions from Jewish cemeteries; Pre-war telephone directories for cities such as Berlin, Vienna and Prague; Newspapers and journals)
Period Covered
1950 – Onwards
Genealogical Value
- Names of those who did not survive (necrology), photos, places, addresses.
Further References
- Baker, Zachary M. Bibliography of Eastern European Memorial (Yizkor) Books. [Estelle Guzik, Genealogical Resources in New York , Appendix A]: Jewish Genealogical Society, 2003
- Fox, Cyril & Issroff, Saul. Jewish Memorial (Yizkor) Books In the United Kingdom: Destroyed European Jewish Communities: Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain, 2006
- Hundert, Gershon David (ed). The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe: Yale University Press, 2008 (The online version is available at www.yivoencyclopedia.org)
- Magocsi, Paul. Historical Atlas of Central Europe: University of Washington Press, 2002
- Magocsi, Paul. Historical Atlas of East Central Europe: University of Washington Press, 1993
- Mokotoff, Gary & Sack, Sallyann Amdur. Where Once We Walked, A Guide to the Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust: Avotanyu, 1991
- Schoenberg, Nancy and Stuart. Lithuanian Jewish Communities: Garland Pub, 1991 (Online digitised format available at Archive.org)
- Tahan, Ilana. (comp) Memorial Volumes to Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust: A Bibliography of British Library Holdings: British Library, 2004
Websites
www.jewishgen.org/yizkor (Yizkor Book Project)
www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/database.html (Yizkor Book Database: Listing of all known Yizkor Books)
www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/YBIP.html (JewishGen Yizkor Book Project: Yizkor Books in Print: Yizkor Books fully translated into English by JewishGen volunteers available for purchase by the descendants of those destroyed communities)
www.jewishgen.org/Communities (The JewishGen Communities Database and JewishGen Gazetteer [formerly ShtetlSeeker]. 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 and the political jurisdictions during different time periods)
https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org (JewishGen KehilaLinks [formerly ShtetLinks]: List of links to Jewish communities region-by-region)
https://jgsli.org/youtube (Jewish Genealogy Society of Long Island. 5 Ways Yizkor Books Can Enhance Your Family Research)
www.rechtman.com/yizkorbk.htm (What are Yizkor Books and how to use them to enhance a genealogical work, by Yigal Rechtman)
www.nypl.org/blog/2019/04/25/yizkor-books-history-research (New York Public Library. Yizkor Books at The New York Public Library, by Amanda Seigel)
www.avotaynu.com/holocaust/yizkor.htm (How to Document Victims and Locate Survivors of the Holocaust-Yizkor books)
https://sztetl.org.pl/en (Virtual Shtetl: The site which is a project of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews 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. Archival documents will be added in time)
www.yivoencyclopedia.org (Online edition of 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)
www.tkfgen.org (Tsal Kaplun Foundation. The foundation collects and shares Jewish genealogical records and related information from archives of the former Soviet Union and former USSR territories, mainly Russia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Ukraine. 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)
http://polishjews.yivoarchives.org (YIVO Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland. The online collection includes manuscripts, posters, photographs, music and other artifacts)
www.cjh.org/p/60 (The Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute of the Center for Jewish History: 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 as well as country specific research including Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Germany, Great Britain and Lithuania)
Online Databases
Online Catalogues (Listing of online catalogues for the partial whereabouts of Yizkor books including WorldCat and Copac)
www.rtrfoundation.org (Routes to Roots Foundation: Online access to the availability and whereabouts of records from Eastern Europe)
https://libguides.nypl.org/yizkorbooks (New York Public Library: Yizkor Books. The library has has 700 yizkor books or Holocaust memorial books in its collections with over 85 per cent digitised and available to search and read. The book were digitised in partnership with the Yiddish Book Center)
https://genealogyindexer.org (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; Yizkor Books and other material. A complete listing of the available directories and Yizkor Books can be found on the home page)
www.jewishgen.org/databases/yizkor (The JewishGen Yizkor Book Necrology Database: Entries from the necrologies of 376 different Yizkor Books covering eastern European countries)
www.jewishgen.org/Communities (The JewishGen Communities Database and JewishGen Gazetteer [formerly ShtetlSeeker]. 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 and the political jurisdictions during different time periods)
www.jewishgen.org/databases/Memorial (JewishGen: Memorial Plaques Database: The database contains more than 75,000 names and other information from synagogue yahrzeit plaques and other yizkor and memorial records, worldwide)
www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery (JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry: More than 2 million records from more than 4,900 cemeteries [or cemetery sections] from 104 countries)
www.ancestry.co.uk (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)
https://genealogyindexer.org (Digitised and indexed Eastern European trade and street directories including the 1932 Palestine Directory and Handbook; Warsaw business directory for 1896; Warsaw telephone directories; Yizkor Books and other material. A complete listing of the available directories and Yizkor Books can be found on the home page)
https://lipesdatabase.com/ (lipesdatabase.com. Online database of Jewish surnames extracted from various sources covering territories of the former Russian Empire including Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Belarus and Moldova. Sources include: Census of the Jewish population in 1875; Russian Empire population census 1897; Details of the settlements in which Jews had lived, shtetls; Detailed database of Jewish surnames common in the Russian Empire with an explanation of their meaning and origin)
CD Roms
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