Polish Medical Questionnaires

Holocaust · Physicians/Medical · Galicia · Poland · Ukraine

Between 1940 and 1942, Jewish medical personnel, including physicians, dentists, nurses, medical orderlies, midwives and those in other health related occupations were required by the adminisrative authorities of the German occupation to complete a questionnaire giving personal information.

In its description of the contents of this collection Yad Vashem states that it consists of, "Initial questionnaires on declaration of occupations distributed to Jewish doctors, nurses, technicians and dental surgeons in various towns in Galicia."  The vast majority but not all of them are from Galicia.

There is no information on how many of these questionnaires were distributed, nor as to whether any other questionnaires, other than those at Yad Vashem, still survive.  There are a few variant versions of the actual questionnaire - in Western Galicia, the questionnaire consisted of three pages and could be completed in German or Polish.  In Eastern Galicia, the questionnaire was four pages with additional questions and could be completed in Ukrainian, German or Polish.

In 2003, Zvi Bernhardt of Yad Vashem and Rabbi Shalom Bronstein decided to input the information from the questinnaires into a computerized database.  There are many questions, which are not included in this database, that can be found on the original questionnaire, for example, in Eastern Galicia the individual was asked to identify the foreign languages spoken by him or her.  (The vast majority of the responders to this question list at least three languages, with several individuals listing as many as seven).  Other questions concerned the individual's place of education, place of medical exams, military service in World War II, wherebouts during the Soviet occupation, bi-weekly salary and citizenship.

The document also asked for information about the individual's spouse, and occasionally the responses contained substantial information.  This information was entered under the name of the person who filled out the questionnaire, and is indicated by the letter "A."  That information was collected from the spouse's responses and does not indicate that another questionnaire was filled out.

The vast majority of the documents also included a picture.  Of the 1,336 actual questionnaires, there are 74 original documents.  The rest are Xerox copies that Yad Vashem acquired.  The earliest date of birth indicated on a questionnaire is 1853.

It is hoped that sometime in the near future Yad Vashem will scan each of these documents so that the entire questionnaire will be accessible over the Internet.  Until that time, individual documents can be ordered from the Yad Vashem Archives by using the file number, sub-file number and number of the document.  Not all of the people who completed these questionnaires perished in the Holocaust, although it is assumed that the vast majority did.

Above introduction prepared by Rabbi Shalom Bronstein.

This database includes 2,001 records.  The fields of the database are as follows:

Notes on above fields:

• NOTE A: Profession Notes for Female Physicians:
  • Note 1: Physician
  • Note 2: Dentist
  • Note 3: Nurse
  • Note 4: Other professions

NOTE B: Yad Vashem File Numbers: The following table lists the file numbers found in File 0.6/15 and the towns that they include.  In some of the sub-files there are documents from towns that are not listed on the cover of the sub-file.

There are variant spellings of numerous towns in this datafile.  There was no attempt to standardize the spelling.  The names appear as they were written on the documents.

The information contained in this database was indexed from the documents found in Yad Vashem File 0.6/15.  It was acquired from various sources.  We thank Yad Vashem for making this file available for posting and Zvi Bernhardt, whose help was invaluable.  Shalom Bronstein compiled the data from the Yad Vashem files, and submitted the work to JewishGen.

In addition, thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and database expertise to make this database accessible.  Special thanks to Susan King, Warren Blatt and Michael Tobias for their continued contributions to Jewish genealogy.  Particular thanks to the Research Division headed by Joyce Field and to Nolan Altman, coordinator of Holocaust files.

Nolan Altman
April 2007

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