Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names
Yad Vashem Memorial provides this database which is the attempt to reconstruct the names and life histories of all the Jews who perished
in the Shoah. The database is accessible online since the 22nd of November. Until today data about 3.2 millions of Shoah victims are recorded.
There is a possibility to add information to existing records or to submit new pages of testimony. The advanced search in the Central Database offers elaborated tools to extend or to narrow a request.
The Berliner Adressbücher (Berlin Street Directories) that were published from 1799 until 1943, are an important source for topographical and biographical research. They are accessible online free of charge and as microfiches in several Berlin libraries (eg. Staatsbibliothek and Center of Berlin-Studies in the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin). Apart from
the heads of a household registered for one address, you can find companies (industry, trade) and public facilities. It is possible to figure out to which postal or assessment area the address you are searching for once belonged
The book “Archivalische Quellen” by Beck and Henning is a standard work and solid guidepost for ancillary sciences in the field of history an archival research: It has been out of print for a long time. Now, a fourth and revised edition has been published. It is extended by a chapter about New Media and the challenge of theirstorage for the long-run.
How to read and transcribe German handwriting? For reading and analyzing archival records from the 18th century onwards until the end of World War II knowledge of the development of German handwriting is essential. A significant part of the cultural heritage like literary manuscripts, diarys, letters, records of all kinds of administrration is written in Sütterlin.
The online-tutorial SLP 2000 - the result of a cooperation research program of the Universities of Potsdam and Saarbrücken - will help you to learn Sütterlin properly. After the installation of the Sütterlin character set, the online-tutorial will work without any problems on every computer.
Many inquiries are concerning the origin and meaning of family names. Therefore as this month’s tip we chose the homepage of the linguist Dr. Jürgen Udolph.
He daily answers questions to familiy names in the broadcasting program “Radio Eins am Vormittag” which also can be received via Internet.
Dr. Udolph’s homepage is very instructive as it offers a lot of valuable bibliograhical references related to the field of onomatology. You can also find links to websites that show the occurence of familiy names in single countries.
The “Slownik geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego” gives a historical and physical description of almost all cities, towns, villages and hamlets in Poland and nearby Slavic countries along with mention of historically important events, buildings such as churches and personages.
Most important is the fact that the descriptions are circa 1880 to 1902, or about the time when most Poles were starting to leave Poland.
The Polish Genealogical Society of America offers a CD-ROM-edition. The dictionary is also available in archives and libraries.
As tip of this month we recommend the following publication: “Biographisches
Handbuch der Rabbiner” [=Biographical Handbook of Rabbis] which refers to
Central Europe in the time between 1781 and 1871.
This handbook contains nearly 2000 single biographies of Rabbis with extensive and detailed references. The references are divided in :
1. archival references to biographies of the Rabbis
2. publications of the Rabbis
3. publications about the Rabbis
4. publications of the disciples of the Rabbis
A geographical index completes this remarkable and impressive edition. (Publisher’s announcement => English
The Berlin Document Center (BDC) was built after World War II under the authority of US-Army for use in war crimes and denazification trials. It is the largest repository of personnel and membership records of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and its affiliated organizations.
The records at the BDC contain both biographical files and nonbiographical materials. The biographical files, which make up the bulk of the collection, contain Nazi Party membership records and personnel records of the SS, SA, and other affiliated party and state agencies. In 1996 the records of the BDC were transferred to the Bundesarchiv in Berlin-Lichterfelde. A detailed description
in English, including the conditions of access to these materials we found here in the interdisciplinary discussion-group H-Net
Our tip for the month of April is the German-speaking webpage sonderarchiv.de about the Central Military Archive in Moscow. This archive containes mainly repositories of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) and subordinate administration departements. The records were produced by these institutions themselves or transferred to them by other communal or public authorities. Also materials confiscated by the Reichssicherheitshautpamt either in Germany or in the occupied territories belong to the Moscow archive.
