Holocaust Project - Auschwitz 2025

Question

Bring your questions for the YouTube Q&A 12pm (Eastern USA time), Wednesday May 8th.

There is no single list of victims of Nazi persecution..... yet. The Holocaust Project is changing that. Like Wikitree's front page says, you can be a part of something big. No prior experience needed, just jump in.

The Holocaust Project invites you to help us add all victims at Auschwitz (Jews and non-Jews); our goal is to have all documented victims added by January 27, 2025. This is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. You can help by adding profiles from these sites; example searches are linked on the Auschwitz 2025 page:

*Joods Monument (the Dutch online memorial, in Dutch & English) 

*Memorial de la Shoah (only in French, you may wish to use an in-browser translator)

*Yad Vashem (use Wikitree Bee to easily Add Person/cite source)

*United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM - Auschwitz search)

*any similar site of your choosing.

If you prefer working from spreadsheets, we have one on Google Sheets: Auschwitz Death Books/Sterbebücher. This document has about 65,000 people with birth/death dates, places of birth, and religion. 

Please try to add at least one more source and family member. But it’s alright if you cannot- each profile is a planted seed that will grow a tree.

Please use the Auschwitz-Birkenau category, unless you are sure that the person died at Auschwitz I (aka main camp) or Auschwitz III (Monowitz)

It would be helpful if you mention on this post what surname or location you are focused on. Please add an "answer" instead of a "comment" - comments will be deleted after being read once, and I'll send you a PM to make sure your comment is addressed.

You do not need to join the Holocaust Project to participate, any WikiTreer is welcome.

Any general questions, ask here! And if you need a new category for a Holocaust-related location (a ghetto, subcamp, etc) post at this G2G link.

Sandy Patak & I will co-host a YouTube presentation on Wednesday May 8th, 12pm Eastern (USA) time to review what we’ve accomplished so far and answer any questions. 

Thank you for participating in this important and historic endeavor.

(Citation link for first sentence -no complete list of victims)

Comments

Please note that in the death location field, the proper description between 1941 and 1945 should be "Konzentrationslager Auschwitz, Auschwitz, Kreis Bielitz, Provinz Oberschlesien, Preußen, Deutsches Reich" or short "Konzentrationslager Auschwitz, Bielitz, Oberschlesien, Preußen, Deutsches Reich". That's the consensus of the Germany Project's twice-monthly meeting of 24 April 2024, i.e. yesterday.

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Best way to achieve this is to have editbot update all death locations containing Auschwitz OR Oświęcim to the prescribed one. And have editbot repeat that operation with some fixed time interval.

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How do you program editbot to do that? Or is there an application process for this?

But then, the death location string is only valid from 1941 to 1945. Before it is different (Schlesien instead of Oberschlesien) and afterwards it's different again (Polish nomenclature). So, can editbot do that depending on the death date?

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I’m pretty sure EditBot can’t do location fields. Oliver- you can repost this comment as an answer, so this area doesn’t get full. Also, the info you provided is now on the Auschwitz 2025 space page, both in the body and in the comment section. Thanks!

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You would have to ask Ales to do it

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Answer 1

I am starting with people born in Groningen, the Netherlands. (using the Joods Monument search, pages 1-3.) I know we already have several of them on Wikitree, but Wikitree's matching system works well, so no worries. 

Comments

(Btw I’m out of town this weekend, so checking in but not doing much Wikitree-ing)

Answer 2

I will add victims and imprisoned with residence in Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, using a printed source. Will add to this free space page https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Holocaust_Persecution_Victims_from_Osnabr%C3%BCck (note the page currently and will continue to cover victims of other camps and ghettos too).

Comments

Perfect, thank you!!

Answer 3

I will add the rest of the Lob family, who were transported to Auschwitz from Netherlands August 1942 with a group of Jewish Catholic Religious in retaliation for the Bishops' letter condemning treatment of the Jews.

5 days on... I have all the LOB Family up now.  As most of the basic info. of this group of Catholic Jews is in the book, I will just put that up at this stage and try to fill out more on them later.

Comments

Great, thank you, Christine!

Answer 4

I didn't know that one could use the WikiTree Bee Extension to source Yad Vashem.

I will try to work on all Abrahams (and variations) from the spreadsheet.

Comments

Awesome. So glad you can help with Hungary! Make sure to get the Wikitree Bee Preview, it’s not in the regular one yet.

Answer 5

I will continue profiles from 's-Gravenhage (The Hague) and Rotterdam, in the Netherlands: families Spiero, van Cleef, Fuld, Barendse, and others, whom I come across.

Comments

Wonderful, thank you, Frans!

Answer 6

I have created the category Jews Deported from Norway during World War IIID/, most of these people were killed in Auschwitz. In total, 772 jews were deported from Norway, and only 37 survived, which means that one third of the victims are added so far. I'm also considering making a Space to provide an overview of the deportation.

Comments

Thank you, B! And a space page would be great. You can add that same category so others can find your page.

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I would love to help, but have never done a project like this and don’t really know how to add a single person that isn’t connected to an existing one.

Snublesteiner.no has 757 of the Norwegian victims, complete with bios.

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Hi R. - thanks for adding sources to the profiles B.F. created..... that will be perfect. I think B.F. already has all 757 victims in a Gedcom and is uploading them with one source and one photo each, so your adding additional sources is perfect. They are over half-way done adding the 757 people.  (edit: I checked the copyright status on the photos, I'm not an expert but looks good to me!)

In order to add a single person, go to the upper right corner of any WT screen, hover over "Add", select New Person, then click Add Unrelated Person, it's a few lines down on that screen, which is Help:Adding to WikiTree And here's the page for you :-)  Add New Person (wikitree.com)

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Yes, the current focus is to create all the records from the Gedcom file (which only links to Våre Falne), and then it will be nice to add more sources from Yad Vashem, Digitalt fangearkiv, Oslo Byleksikon, Jødisk Museum Oslo etc. So far I have only added profiles which can be connected to the world tree, and it seems that most of the Norwegian jews are in some way related to each other through marriages or ancestors. Still I guess I will end up with some isolated individuals or small families that I'm not able to connect.

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Thank you, Elaine. I didn’t add any of the photos since I was unsure of the copyright. I just wanted to add some bios to give them more dimension.

And thank you for the how-to.

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Hi, B. Since you have a system I’ll stop adding people (just added 2), and focus on adding to the existing profiles. There were only about 2100 Jews in Norway before the war so it was a very small community and everyone was affected in some way. There weren’t a lot of deep roots to Norway, so many who fled during the war never came back. In 1946 there were 559 Jews left in Norway. The community never recovered and there’s about 1500 Jews in Norway today.

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Thanks a lot for your great improvement of the articles!

Which 2 people did you add? I have a local folder with all the pictures from Våre Falne which makes it easy to upload them to the project.

At Helsfyr Mosaic Graveyard there are 1049 graves according to ''Slekt og Data'', but there are som duplicates and some of the holocaust victims are included. I have a feeling that a lot of the Jewish graves in Trondheim are not indexed at ''Slekt og Data''.

The difficult part is to find the ancestors, especially from the old Russian Empire. I have found some people at JewishGen, but it is not easy as there are so many ways to transcribe the names. Just wondering if any of the Jews still living in Norway could have any good sources of information here, or maybe Jødisk Museum Oslo.

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I added Ida and her daughter Mirjam. Left them without an admin.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tarschys-1

I won’t be much help outside Norway. The museum is probably your best bet, or maybe you can get some help here

https://www.dmt.oslo.no/

Answer 7

I will work on the 359 victims of the clothing factory Hollandia-Kattenburg in Amsterdam that were deported in November 1942, with many of them murdered in Auschwitz.

https://herdenking-hollandiakattenburg.nl/boek-der-tranen/

Comments

Thank you, Sjaak!

Answer 8

I have added my relative [[Fresco-51|Jacob Fresco (1913-1944)]].

Comments

Great, Gerry.

Answer 9

I'll work on Auschwitz victims from Malacky based on Yad Vashem. I'm hoping that the 1930 Czech census will be helpful for adding relatives.  I tested out the Wikitree BEE extension and it seems to work reasonably well.

Comments

Fantastic, glad it’s working well for you. I’m so grateful to our extension developers!

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Is there a category for Kamenets-Podolsky? I found one for the location itself, but not as a holocaust site:  https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kamenets-podolsk

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I’ll create one for the August 1941 massacre, will that cover your person? (Edit: Holocaust Project has a Massacres category in addition to ghettos and concentration camps)

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Done, here's the new category - Category: Kamenets-Podolski Massacres Victims (August 1941) (wikitree.com)

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Thanks!

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What about categories for jews executed by firing squads during Holocaust, jews who died during the transportation to the camps, or jews who died during the death marches in 1945?

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We have some, but not all here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Holocaust_Era_Locations if you need a particular one, just let me know.

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Just wondering if there is any list of the death marches that could be used to create the categories.

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I'm now working on people born in Bratislava (also called Pressburg).  I'll focus on Yad Vashem records, starting with the Jews Murdered at Auschwitz source (~700 records).  That will keep me busy for a while.

I'll look out for existing profiles as I go, in case anyone else is working on/around Bratislava.

I still need to go back and recheck on the Malacky profiles, making sure that I added the category to all.  I was able to connect most to at least one relative, and hope that connecting them to the "main" tree will become easier in the future when there are more Bratislava profiles. There seems to have been a lot of migration between Bratislava and Malacky (and generally better records in Bratislava).

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Al, that's great! B.F. - I don't know of any full list. I started one, feel free to add to it under "Overview". I have a book with 6 pages of fairly detailed maps, I only added one so far (Dachau-Tegernsee, page 208). I can send you the other pages if you like, just PM me. Edit, here's the link to page - Holocaust Death Marches

Answer 10

My parents were from Leiden, Zuid-Holland. So I will try to add some families of Leiden shown in Joods Monument. I started already with family "de Leeuw"

Comments

Thank you, Jos!

Answer 11

Helpful and faster way to find profiles of your relatives or profiles in general is to run searches via Wikitree+.  "Batch categorizing" is relatively new feature!

Open up the Wikitree Plus page to run your search: https://plus.wikitree.com/default.htm 

1: On the left side of the screen, select "SEARCH". 

2: "sort by": which ever option works best for you 

3: "page size": select maximum (otherwise it will default to 10 profiles per page) 

4: "text": add what it is you are searching 

5: "max profiles": select 5000 to see how many profiles are out there needing a category.  You will see profiles with and without categories (right column).

So now you will see a wonderful feature at the VERY TOP left of this page called "BATCH CATEGORIZE" in blue font. 

1. Click on this link. 

2. It will ask you to input the name of the category, and it will search all the categories within Wikitree.

3. Once you find your category select it. Make sure it is the correct category. 

4.  All profiles below will have a box you can select to add the category.

5. You will only want to select maybe 20 profiles at a time, because for each profile you select, it will open into a new page on your computer. (yes 20 pages). You don't want to freeze your computer. If your computer is old, select 10 at a time. 

5. You are required to save each profile page after review.  After 30 seconds have passed, Wikitree goes into "autosave" mode. Once it does this, do something like hit the spacebar in the biography to see the "save button" reappear. Then hit save. Close out that profile ... and onto the next. 

6. You will notice back on Wikitree Plus, that those profiles you have just worked on will be removed from that working list. If you refresh that page, they will all appear again. So make sure you have time to sit and work through all of them (as it can be frustrating). 

Just a warning note: remember that Wikitree will lock up your account if you hit the save button too many times within a short period. 

There are other search parameters you can use on Wikitree+ as well.  Play around with it to find what suits your needs before you begin to categorize. 

:)  Skye, Poland Project 

Comments

Hello, I'm pretty much a newby and I want to be sure I'm doing this probably. I have added Friemel-14 a gentleman who died at Auschwitz and added his mother and father as that information was available in baptismal document. How should I notify the larger group who I have added?

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Hi Joanne- great job! I made some edits, feel free to message me if you have any questions. A lot of Wikitreeing is just spending time with trial and error, don’t worry, you are doing great :-)

Answer 12

I would like to help.

Comments

Great! Feel free to message me here, PM, or Discord if you need help finding a starting place or have any other questions!

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Thanks. I will reach out in a day or so.

Answer 13

I'll continue the work started in 2019 to add Jehovah's Witness victims (and their family members). Thanks so much for leading this project, Elaine!

Comments

Wonderful, thank you Azure!

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 Max Liebster (1915 - 2008) & his father: Meier Ben Bernard Beirich Liebster (1882 - 1940)

Answer 14

Where can I help? I have some understanding of French if that would be useful.

Comments

Sure, how about working on Convoi 7? This page has both an overview of the train from Drancy to Auschwitz and a list of all victims' names with links to their Yad Vashem data on the right. Convoi 7, Train DA 901-2 de Drancy,Camp,France à Auschwitz Birkenau,Camp d'extermination,Pologne le 19/07/1942 (yadvashem.org)  And if you want to try a browser extension to make adding from Yad Vashem easier, try this: WikiTree BEE (Preview) Update  Also, for further info on the French, go here: Recherche avancée - Mémorial de la Shoah (memorialdelashoah.org)

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I just quickly did one person from Convoi 7, so you can see as an example. Abraham Szuck (1897-1942)

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Sounds good. Thanks.

I'll review the project guidelines tonight, and then get started tomorrow.

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Do you have recommended sources for French genealogy in this time period? In Canada I would have used census documents, for example.

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I have to figure out how to make tables like you did in the sample profile.

Can you take a look at this one and see if you have any concerns?

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Abramovici-4

I'm not sure whether I handled his name change correctly. I had his parents information and was able to add profiles for them as well. His father was arrested elsewhere and sent on a different transport, but they both ended up at the same place.

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Hi Kim- great bio! The name change is good. Don’t worry about the table…. I usually don’t use them except for the very special Yad Vashem one :-) It’s especially good when there’s only a couple sources on the profile, easy to read. When you use the Wikitree Bee, you can choose to use the table or plain text. Here’s the link for the Bee browser extension. No worries if you don’t need/want to use it, you can also write your own citations. This just makes it quicker (and there is an Add Person feature which auto-fills name/date/etc for new profiles)

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About your source question, try these … https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:France_genealogical_resources and https://deces.matchid.io/search?advanced=true

Answer 15

I will start working on the family Veit from Austria and Germany.

Comments

Awesome, I got your message & sent you one back.

Answer 16

I am interested in helping with this!!!

Answer 17

I would love to be in on this and help out. I will give as much time as I can.

Thank you for inviting me.

Answer 18

Is there anything posted on Dachau victims? I visited the camp there in the late 1990s and would love to give back to the families of the victims there in a small way.

Comments

Sure, is there a country of origin you are most interested in working from? Here's our category page. Category: Dachau Concentration Camp Victims  I clicked on one person at random, he has no family. But if you don't wish to work in Poland, we can find something else. Stanislaus Jonski

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I'm sure victims at Dachau were from a variety of countries, being in southern Germany. Thank you for the link to the category. I'll see what I can do to help.

Answer 19

I would like to help with this important project

Answer 20

My great uncle’s wife was a holocaust survivor but I have no idea which camp she was at. Mom didn’t think it was Auschwitz but I suppose it’s possible. I guess I’m just wondering how to document that without knowing the details?

Comments

Just write whatever you know. Yad Vashem website is a good first place to look.... sometimes another relative or neighbor your family doesn't know may have submitted a page of testimony, or there could be deportation records, etc. Do you have the link to his Wikitree profile?

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Thanks! 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Skuhr-3