Jewish Family History

Following World War II, the Jewish community began several large-scale undertakings to document the towns and people destroyed in the Holocaust. Three records of great importance to genealogical research are Yizkor books, Pages of Testimony, and lists of victims and deportees.

Yizkor, or memorial books. These publications are usually written in Hebrew or Yiddish and include the history of a Jewish community, memories of the community’s survivors, information from friends about families that had no survivors, a list of Holocaust victims from the town, and names and addresses of survivors. Yizkor books are usually privately printed in small publication runs. For more information see Jewish Holocaust.