Holocaust Jacket Leads to Life Story of Ben Peres

 A woman hunting for bargains at a tag sale on July 4, 2015, found a blue and grey striped jacket hanging in the back of an upstairs bedroom closet.

She immediately recognized it as a jacket worn by a prisoner at the Nazi Dachau concentration camp during World War II. The number 84679 on the front of the jacket confirmed that it had indeed been worn during the Holocaust.

After purchasing the jacket she donated it to the Kuperferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College, where it is the centerpiece of an exhibit about the life of the man who wore it,  Benzion Peresecki — who was rescued from Dachau Concentration Camp and later came to America and became Ben Peres.

The jacket is a piece of history and allows the story of Mr. Peres to be shared with the world. Read the full story at  Holocaust jacket found at tag sale leads to a life story

Pre-Holocaust ID Cards of Thousands of Jews Discovered in Lithuania

Pre-Holocaust ID Cards of Thousands of Jews Discovered in Lithuania

 Recently Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum archivists found almost 26,000 previously unknown identification cards belonging to Jewish citizens in the national archives in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania. The cards, which contain personal details such as father's name, date of birth and more, were kept with a collection of all ID cards issued by the local population authority in Kauna, to Jews and non-Jews, from 1920-1940   

Continue reading at Pre-Holocaust ID Cards of Thousands of Jews Discovered in Lithuania

Holocaust Records Collection Now Available (Free) on Ancestry.com

The following Press Release was sent to Olive Tree Genealogy by Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Release First Searchable Online Records Collections From World Memory Project

Information on Holocaust survivors and victims of Nazi persecution

available online at no cost through efforts of World Memory Project

WASHINGTON, D.C./PROVO, Utah, November 2, 2011 – The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Ancestry.com announced that material from four Museum collections containing information on more than 30,000 victims of Nazi persecution is now available online at Ancestry.com and can be searched at no cost.  The collections contain information on thousands of individuals including displaced Jewish orphans; Czech Jews deported to the Terezin concentration camp and camps in occupied Poland; and French victims of Nazi persecution.  

The collections are being made available through the World Memory Project, launched in May 2011. The project is recruiting the public to help build the world’s largest online resource on Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of non-Jews who were targeted for persecution by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, allowing victims’ families and survivors themselves to discover missing chapters of their history, learn the truth about the fate of their relatives and honor those who were lost.  

World Memory Project contributors are continuously keying information that will form new searchable databases of historical collections when complete.  To date, more than 2,100 contributors from around the world have indexed almost 650,000 records.  Anyone, anywhere can contribute to the project by simply typing information from historical records into the online database.  

“World Memory Project contributors are helping Holocaust survivors and their families learn the truth about what happened to loved ones,” says Lisa Yavnai, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum WMP project leader.  “It is an incredible gift that anyone can give to those who survived the horrors of Nazi Germany.  In a few months, the contributors’ efforts have resulted in more online searchable records than the Museum alone could have produced in many years.”

The World Memory Project utilizes proprietary software and project management donated by Ancestry.com, which hosts its own online archival project to transcribe historical records.  Once Museum records are transcribed, the indices are hosted exclusively on Ancestry.com and are permanently free to search.  The Museum provides copies of documents upon request at no cost.  The original documentation remains in the Museum’s archival collection.

“We’ve been inspired by the steadfast efforts of the thousands of contributors who have in some cases spent hundreds of hours transcribing this important material,” remarked Tim Sullivan, CEO, Ancestry.com.  “These early results would likely have taken years without the dedication of the many individuals who have embraced the mission of the World Memory Project.”

To find out more about the World Memory Project or to learn how to become a contributor, please visit www.WorldMemoryProject.org.

About the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum www.ushmm.org
A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Federal support guarantees the Museum’s permanent place on the National Mall, and its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by generous donors. For more information, visit www.ushmm.org.

About Ancestry.com www.ancestry.com
Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM) is the world's largest online family history resource, with more than 1.7 million paying subscribers. More than 7 billion records have been added to the site in the past 15 years. Ancestry users have created more than 28 million family trees containing over 2.8 billion profiles. Ancestry.com has local Web sites directed at nine countries that help people discover, preserve and share their family history, including its flagship Web site at www.ancestry.com.

National Archives and Footnote.com Announce New Digital Holocaust Collection

A press notice about this amazing new collection online came to my email box this morning. I've pulled the highlights to share with readers:

Collection includes Holocaust-related photos and records available online for first time

Washington DC and Lindon, UT -September 29, 2009 - The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and Footnote,com today announced the release of the internet's largest Interactive Holocaust Collection. For the first time ever, over one million Holocaust-related records - including millions of names and 26,000 photos from the National Archives- will be available online.

Included among the National Archives records available online at
Footnote,com are:

Concentration camp registers and documents from Dachau, Mauthausen,Auschwitz, and Flossenburg.

The "Ardelia Hall Collection" of records relating to the Nazi looting of Jewish possessions, including looted art.

Captured German records including deportation and death lists from concentration camps.

Nuremberg War Crimes Trial proceedings.

*** Access to the collection will be available for free on Footnote,com through the month of October ***

The collection also includes nearly 600 interactive personal accounts of those who survived or perished in the Holocaust provided by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The project incorporates social networking tools that enable visitors to search for names and add photos, comments and stories, share their insights, and create pages to highlight their discoveries. There will be no charge to access and
contribute to these personal pages.

So that visitors may more easily access and engage the content, Footnote,com has created a special Holocaust site featuring:

Stories of Holocaust victims and survivors.

Place where visitors can create their own pages to memorialize their Holocaust ancestors.

Pages on the concentration camps - includes descriptions, photos,maps, timelines and accounts from those who survived the camps.

Descriptions and samples of the original records from the National Archives.

The Holocaust collection is the latest in a continuing partnership between Footnote,com and the National Archives to scan, digitize, and make historical records available online. The goal is to give more people access to these and other historical records that have previously only been available through the research room of the National Archives. This partnership brings these priceless resources to an even greater number of people and enables the National Archives
to provide ever-greater access to these critical holdings.