USHMM

HUNGARIAN SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP (H-SIG)
A Jewish-Gen SIG
http://www.jewishgen.org/Hungary/

Hungarian Research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is not a genealogical museum. Although you won’t find 19th century records, you may find information about the history of the communities you are researching in memorial books, audiotapes of interviews with Holocaust survivors, cemetery lists, and other materials. The following brief summary mentions some of the resources that may be particularly helpful for those researching Hungarian roots:

1. Search the combined USHMM archive/library catalog before you come to Washington. There are 980 entries for Hungary, 480 for Budapest. Search for your town and search for the surnames you are researching. The catalog lists names of survivors who participated in taped interviews. The URL for the catalog is http://varian.ushmm.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?PAGE=sbSearch&SEQ=20030714034707&PID=17811

2. Examine the printed material at the USHMM. These include:

·   Counted Remnant—Jewish Holocaust survivors in Budapest (Call #DS135.H9 C68 1946b)
·   Women in Stutthof –Jewish women shipped to Stutthof via Auschwitz
·   County books. Memorial books for Zala, Bekes, and Hajdu counties. (Note: The Zala and Hajdu volumes can be searched on-line at http://www.neveklarsfeld.org. See below for further information.)
·   Hungarian labor battalions (Note: The two volumes of The Jews Conscripted to the Forced Labor Battalions can be searched on-line at: http://www.neveklarsfeld.org See below.)
·   Beke Poraikra books—two volumes of lists of names of soldiers and forced laborers who perished (Call #D797.H9 B87 1999)
·   Holocaust Magyarorszagon Sorozat--county by county inventory of archive holdings
·   Sharit ha Platah and other survivor lists
·   Survivors Registry books

3. Camp records. Particularly Dachau and Stutthof. (Note: The Klarsfeld project is compiling and computerizing the names of Jews from Greater Hungary who were deported to the Mauthausen Camp).

4. Archival records.

·   80 reels from Hungarian archives relating to events in 1944. Mostly administrative and few lists of people. (1997 A294)
·   Transylvania (RG25.001) Romanian intelligence files
·   Trans Carpathia Inventory of lists but material itself not yet filmed.

5. Other material not yet available that may become available in future.

·   1941 Hungarian census
·   Lists of deportees who returned to Hungary
·   Deportation lists

Some records from printed resources at the USHMM are now also available on line at NEVEKLARSFELD, a website with information regarding the fate of more 350,000 Jews of Greater Hungary during and following the Holocaust.

NEVEKLARSFELD is a database based on a series of published volumes including to date: The Deported Jews of the County of Hajdu, The Deported Jews of the County of Zala, two volumes of The Jews Conscripted to the Forced Labour Battalions and The Jewish Women Deported to Stutthof. The project’s most recent volume, The Deported Jews of the County of Bekes , will be added to the site in the year 2003. All of the published lists are available at the USHMM . (See Bar Shaked, Gavriel. Nevek = Shemot = Names. [Jerusalem] : Szól A Kakas Már ; New York : Beate and Serge Klarsfeld Foundation, [1990?-<2002 >] ISBN: 9653080180 (v. 2) v. <1-6 > Call Number: DS135.H9 N48 1992 Volumes: v. 1-6)

The NEVEK project was inaugurated in 1988, assisted by the Association for Research of the Hungarian Speaking Jewry founded in Israel (called in Hungarian “Szol a Kakas mar”) and by the Beate Klarsfeld Foundation (New York). In 1992 the Klarsfeld Foundation became the sole promoter of the project.

The aim of the project is the computerization of personal data of the persecuted Hungarian Jews in the Holocaust period based only on original historical documents of the wartime, such as

·   Deportations lists drawn up by the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie in April,1944; personal cards of the Hungarian Ministry of Defense dealing with Jews drafted to labor battalions; lists used by other ministries and local administration, such as those leading to the confiscation of Jewish property; food ration cards for Jews ; lists of internment camps held by the Hungarian Police, lists of ghettoes , lists of the “Jewish Houses” in Budapest ,etc;

·   Lists and personal cards of concentration camps controlled by the Germans .

In addition to the records mentioned above, the project has produced as of yet unpublished information from the Kistarcsa internment camp, and the Strasshof and Lichtenwoerth concentration camps in Austria. NEVEKLARSFELD has also begun to compile and computerize the names of the Jews of Greater Hungary deported to the Mauthausen Camp. Future records will include the deportation lists of Somogy, Szolnok, Vas and Sopron counties and nominal cards from the Mauthausen camp complex.

At the present time the search engine is only available to PC users. For further information contact NEVEKLARSFELD at: nevek@barak-online.net

This guide is based on information provided by Peter Lande and additional research by Vivian Kahn.

This page last updated January 5, 2011