The German Minister of State to the Federal Chancellor visited Yad Vashem today, October 23, 2008. The Minister has been asked by the German Chancellor to present Yad Vashem with a digital copy of the List of Jewish Residents in the German Reich. The list was prepared over 4 years, and contains the personal details of around 600,000 Jewish residents in Germany between 1933 and 1945 (1937 borders) who suffered anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution.

The list contains names and addresses of Jewish residents, as well as details of their emigration, detention and deportation, and where and when many of them died. The data was culled from registration documents – primarily in medium-sized and larger towns and cities – deportations lists, archives, museums, memorial sites and the Toten-Gedenkbuch (memorial book of the dead) compiled by the federal archives. Some 2.5 million data records were collected from over a thousand different sources. It was produced by the Bundesarchiv (German federal archives), with assistance from experts from Yad Vashem’s Archives and Hall of Names, on behalf of the “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” Foundation.

“This list adds to our understanding of what happened to the Jews in Germany,” said Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem. “Every new piece of information allows us to piece together the story of individuals and communities during the Holocaust. This list, in conjunction with other material in our Archives, helps fill in gaps in our knowledge of what occurred.”

(Moshe Altusky – YWN)