The 1933 German Towns Project

Background

In the 1960s, the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany wrote letters to mayors and other officials of West German counties and towns, asking them to list the Jewish inhabitants of their communities as of 1933, i.e. pre-Hitler, and, to the extent known, the fate of these Jews. This collection includes the reports created by those local towns received by the International Tracing Service.

The information on each individual varies in detail.  In almost all cases, dates and places of birth, as well as dates of death, where known, are listed.  (In some cases street addresses were provided, but these have not been entered into the database).  Where it was known that an individual had been deported, this is noted, though a check of other material indicates that the compilers were not aware that many persons on the lists had been deported.  Accordingly, researchers should always check other sources of information, such as the German Government's Gedenkbuch, before concluding that a person had not been deported.

Database

Towns Included:

This database currently includes 66,182 records, from 303 towns. The names of the included towns and number of records for each are accessible by clicking here.

Data Fields

The data fields for each record in this database are as follows:

• Record #
• Source Town Name
• Surname
• Given Name
• Maiden Name
• Date of Birth
• Place of Birth
• Date of Death
• Place of Death
• Comments

Acknowledgments

The information contained in this database was compiled from files of the International Tracing Service (ITS), copies of which are held at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), collection 1.2.5.1.

A team of volunteers, under the direction of Peter Landé and subsequently Carol Oliver, has been performing data entry work to create this dataset. JewishGen appreciates the efforts of all the volunteers who have been working on this project which includes Carol Baird, Nicole Heymanns, Gary Mokotoff, Hans Nord, Irene Peters, Vera Nagel, Peter Strauss, Inge Wiesen, Robert Winter, Esther Simon and Diana Simcha.

In addition, thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and database expertise to make this database accessible.  Special thanks to Avrami Groll for his continued contributions to Jewish genealogy. Particular thanks to Nolan Altman, Director of Special Projects and Coordinator of JewishGen’s Holocaust Database files.

Nolan Altman
Director of Data Acquisition
Coordinator-Holocaust Database
July, 2022

Searching the Database

This database is searchable via JewishGen's Holocaust Database and the JewishGen Germany Database.