At the New York Jewish genealogy meeting [1999] I promised to prepare a list of currently available Holocaust related databases useful for persons researching the fate of German or Austrian Jews, and place this list on the Gersig web site. Such a list, with brief descriptions, follows. Of course, the following lists are far smaller than information contained in printed material, starting with the German Government's Gedenkbuch (Memorial book), and including information contained in a large number of city and town Gedenkbücher. Also, considerable information on individuals is contained in books or lists relating to individual concentration camps, e.g. Auschwitz, or deportation lists, e.g. France, Belgium and Holland, from which many German and Austrian Jews were deported. If I can help anyone with Holocaust related issues, they may contact me (Peter Landé) at pdlande@compuserve.com. 

Stutthof:  Stutthof was one of the lesser known concentration camps, with perhaps 40,000 to 50,000 Jews sent there. It is of unusual interest to German/Austrian researchers since many Jews who were originally deported to Riga and Kaunas/Kovno were later sent to Stutthof. (Large numbers of Hungarian Jews originally scheduled to be deported to Auschwitz were also sent there) I have gone through the camp's records contained on 305 reels of film and extracted the names of German/Austrian Jews as well as noted their fate to the extent the records disclose that. This collection also includes information on a few persons not connected with Stutthof.

Westphalia:  Bernhard Brilling, a rabbi and genealogist resident in Münster, Germany after World War II, decided to collect as much information as possible on the fate of Westphalian Jews during the Holocaust. He wrote to dozens of towns and asked for information on the fate of Jews who had been resident in these towns. I computerized these lists and this database may be searched by family name or town of birth or residence.

French Deportations:  From 1987 through 1994 the French Government intermittently published in the Journal Officiele lists of all persons deported from France (Jewish and non-Jewish) who were believed to have died. This list does not correspond to Klarsfeld's list of deportees, for reasons unknown to me. I computerized the names of 825 persons born in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. Again, for reasons unknown to me, this list is far shorter than the list of names in Klarsfeld or those that appear on the actual deportation lists which are available in Paris and at the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

Austrian Jews in Concentration Camps (http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/database.html). Unfortunately, the Austrians have never chosen to issue a memorial book, though one has been under preparation for many years. This list is basically illustrative, showing the fate of these individuals. Its primary purpose is to draw attention to the variety of places where Austrian names appear.

Reichsvereinigung der Juden (http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/database.html). The Reichsvereinigung was an umbrella organization for Jewish organizations operating in Germany from the mid 1930s through nearly the end of World War II. The entire files of this organization survived the war and are available at the Bundesarchiv and the Holocaust Museum. The list which I computerized simply enumerates those German Jews on which files exist in this collection. These files may be as slim as a single page or as large as a dozen pages. They include persons who perished in the Holocaust and persons who emigrated to a number of countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil.

Nuremberg (http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/database.html). Nuremberg was one of the later cities to publish a memorial book, but it was one of the first to place its contents on line.

Auschwitz work details (http://www.ushmm.org) The Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. is engaged in a major project to computerize and place on line various Holocaust lists. The only list currently available on line is a list of 5,000 Jews in work details in Auschwitz. Many of these persons were Germans or Austrians. The information on these persons often includes material on family members. Further lists are being prepared and these will be added to this finding aid when they are available.

Yad Vashem Hall of Names (http://www.yad-vashem.org.il).  For some time Yad Vashem has been computerizing the names contained in its Hall of Names and this should be available on the web in the near future. In the meantime individual inquiries may be sent. Hall of Names listings are drawn from submissions by individuals, not from actual Holocaust records. However, they are unusually useful since they also indicate who submitted the information, thereby giving the researcher a link to a survivor/relative.