This week I took the opportunity to spend some time at Footnote.com. With the release of its Holocaust Collection, I felt compelled to check it out. My only connection to the Holocaust is via my Polish ancestry. Although my Great Grandfather left Poland in 1905 long before this tragic period in time, he left behind two sisters and a brother. In my research of these remaining siblings in Poland, I have come to learn that the two sisters remained in the home village and were married and later buried in the same Parish they were baptized in. However, Stanislaw, the remaining brother is not buried in this Parish nor are his parents and so that raises questions for me as to where both he and his parents are buried. Because I have yet to uncover Stanislaw's story I do speculate as to his life during this time period. He would have been about 44 years old at the start of WWII. Their hometown village of Oscislowo is 50 km outside of Warsaw; they were short distances from two concentration camps Treblinka and Belzec. Knowing that 70,000-75,000 Poles were also exterminated during this Holocaust leads me look to this direction as a possible chapter in my great uncle’s life.
So I decided to take a closer look at the Holocaust Collection.
Do not hesitate to investigate this collection. Even if you do not have any relatives in your genealogy who survived or died in the Holocaust the collection is moving in it self.
The Holocaust Collection is done in partnership with the National Archives. You will find stories of the Holocaust from survivors, stories, maps and facts about concentration camps.
The collection also includes:
German War Crime Records
Captured German Records
Dachau Concentration Camp Entry Registers
Flossenburg Concentration Camp Entry Registers
Mauthausen Death Records
WWII Nuremburg Interrogation Records
Holocaust Era Assets
Footnote http://www.footnote.com/ reminds us that not all records are fully available as of yet but to keep checking back. These records are free to everyone until Oct 31, 2009. If you choose to sign up for a subscription they are offering a reduced rate until Oct 31st, at $55.95 for an annual membership. Footnote.com proclaims to have over 60 million documents and images in its database. Definitely an online resource worth checking out and for the Holocaust Collection alone I have since added this website to my Best Bookmarks Collection.
