An Associated Press story, “Nazi Archive Has Millions of Victim Names”, brings hope to the many family members of more than 17.5 million victims of the Holocaust:
Privacy concerns have held up the opening of the center’s 30 million documents to historians and the public, a restriction that could end soon under pressure from Holocaust researchers and Jewish organizations.
In a key breakthrough, the German government said Tuesday it was ready to work with the United States on the issue, though no final agreement has been reached…
…More than 50 million references to the victims have been catalogued, cross-referenced and, in most cases, digitally scanned to form a huge database. Some 150,000 requests were dealt with last year alone.
It is by far the most complete listing of those who suffered in World War II, said Udo Jost, archive manager for the International Tracing Service.
Currently, it takes an average 3 to four years to get requested information from the archives for direct family members from the archives. While the information stored there is highly sensitive, it could be a huge boon to family researchers to have faster and better access to the Holocaust archives.
In 2005, Yad Vashem, the Israel Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, opened up their decades of records and research free to the public through their The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names hosts more than 3 million of the more than 6 million Jews killed and victimized by the Holocaust.
Yad Vashem and Soah is also seeking information on victims called “Pages of Testimony”. If you have information that they currently do not have on their database, contact them to ensure everyone is remembered.
The following are more research resources for searching for victims, Jewish and non-Jewish, of Hilter’s Holocaust:
- Jewishgen.org – Jewish Genealogy
- Moving Here – Tracing Jewish Roots
- The JewishGen Holocaust Database
- The Lithuanian Jewry Memorial Foundation – The Names Project
- Linkuva and Holocaust Resources
- The Holocaust Memorial Center – Holocaust Genealogy, Archives, Registers of Names – Link Resources
- Czestochowa-Radomsko Area Research Group (CRARG)
- Missing Idenity – Finding Children in the Holocaust
- The Lithuanian Holocaust Names Project
- The US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington
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