Jan. 19, 2008, 7:01PM
Data on Holocaust victims made available to public
Museum shares records on about 17 million victims
By ERIC ROSENBERG
2008 Hearst News Service
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has begun helping
Holocaust survivors, their family members and researchers gain access
to a huge troveof Nazi-era records detailing the fates of millions of
victims.
Museum officials last week announced they were making available via
online request digital copies of the records, which include
Nazi-generated documents on concentration camp rosters, slave labor
camps, transport manifests, ghetto inhabitants, and arrest
records. They also include allied documents on victims housed at
displaced persons camps after the end of World War II in1945.
To access the data Museum officials hope the documents provide people
with the details of the fates of loved ones.
The public may access the archives free of charge by visiting the
museum’s Web site at and following the links for access
to the International Tracing Service collection.
Requesters must submit an online form that asks for the name of the
victim, name of the victim’s mother and father, birth place town and
country, birth date, residence before war, and known locations during
the war.
People may also submit the form via regular mail or fax. The 50
researchers will give priority to requests from Holocaust survivors
and their families. The request will be forwarded to a museum
researcher, who is supposed to reply within six to eight weeks.
Significant dates
The documents contain victim-level details such as the specific unit a
prisoner was assigned to, whether he or she became ill and was sent to
an infirmary or whether he or she fell sick and was then shot. Some
contain signatures of victims as they signed forms along the way to a
death camp. The Germans kept meticulous records of their deeds.
"When you are able to show the family of a victim a signature of that
victim from that documentation, that may be the only thing they have
ever seen connecting to a moment when the victim was alive," said Paul
Shapiro, a director at the museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust
Studies.
In Judaism, family members light what is known as a Yahrzeit candle on
the anniversary of a loved one’s death followed by the recitation of
the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. Saying Kaddish on the
anniversary is one of the most important expressions of faith a Jew
performs.
But more than six decades after the mass murder led by Germany, many
Jews have never known when their loved ones died. The documents will
finally allow many who lost relatives to recite Kaddish on the exact
anniversary.
"To be able to show families – that is an overwhelming
experience,"Shapiro said.
Other museums to follow
The archive was compiled by allied forces from Nazi records after the
war. Eventually, the archive, dubbed the International Tracing
Service collection, was handed over to the Red Cross and housed in Bad
Arolsen, Germany.
The collection was off limits to researchers and the general public
since the end of the war nearly 63 years ago. The Red Cross had
allowed limited access to Holocaust survivors and their families.
The 11 nations of the International Tracing Service’s governing body
voted in 2006 to make the documents available to the public. Those
nations are Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Britain and the United States.
The collection was opened to the public in Germany for the first time
in November.
In addition to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, two other museums,
one in Israel and one in Poland, also plan to obtain digital copies of
the Nazi-era documents.
The release of the collection is expected to help pare a backlog of
over 400,000 requests for information at the German facility from
Holocaust survivors and their families.
_eric@hearstdc.com_ (mailto:eric@hearstdc.com)