Persecuted Jews in the Czech Lands Who Did Not Pass through the Terezín Ghetto

Author: Mgr Tomáš Fedorovič

The database "Persecuted Jews in the Czech Lands Who Did Not Pass through the Terezín Ghetto" contains data about the Jewish victims of the Nazi repressive apparatus in the Czech lands who, for different reasons, were not deported to Terezín, but to other places in the Nazi-occupied territories. The database covers the period from 1938 to 1945. To be included in the database in the next stage of its development will be persons so far missing who were deported from Moravská Ostrava to the camp Nisko on the San in Poland in October 1939. Even now, however, the database contains names of the Jewish inmates transferred to concentration camps after the "Anschluss" of Austria, or from the seceded Czech borderlands.

The database contains mostly names of those persecuted Jews who were born in the former Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, or the occupied borderlands mostly incorporated into the Reich District of Sudeten (Reichsgau Sudetenland).1 Besides these people, the database also lists Jews of foreign nationality who were tortured to death in the Czech lands, with the exception of the Jewish victims from the Police Prison in Terezín´s Small Fortress (see the independent database of the Terezín Memorial - Polizeigefängnis Theresienstadt 1940-1945 / Gestapo Prison in Terezín Small Fortress 1940-1945).2

The database of victims was created with the aim to concentrate, in a single unit, data scattered in many foreign archives (Poland, FRG, Austria) or freely accessible sources which are unknown or hardly accessible to many researchers.3

Researchers can find on this website for example information about the Jewish victims from the Czech lands deported to the East from France and Belgium,4 information about people born in the Czech lands and deported from Germany or Austria (Ostmark) directly to the ghettos, labour or extermination camps in the East.5 The database also contains names of the Jewish victims of Nazi terror in the concentration camps of the Third Reich, born in the Czech lands or with Czech/Czechoslovak6 nationality stated in their documents.

Besides personal data on the date and place of birth, the database also seeks , based on the preserved documents, at least to capture in a concise fashion the fate of each persecuted person. Time data related to the individual places of suffering may mean either the day of deportation to the given place, or a period within which the extant camp and other documents mention a specific person. When it was impossible to provide an exact date and place of death, the last known place of a person's presence is given. Preserved camp numbers can provide another source of information source for researchers.

When searching for a specific name, we recommend to use the symbol (tady by asi měly být uvozovky dole) *" which represents any number of characters (for example L*wy can refer to Lewy, Loewy, Löwy).

This database has not been finalized, reflecting the current state of research in early 2011. The electronic form makes it possible continuously to update and correct the database in accordance with newly acquired knowledge or to incorporate large sources. We will therefore be very grateful to you, our website users and researchers, for sending us any notes, suggestions or comments, links to historical documents, or providing us with photographs to the mentioned names.

Contact: databaze@pamatnik-terezin.cz

1In addition to the Sudeten District , it concerns also an area in the southwest of Bohemia that was attached to Bavaria and became part of the Bavarian East Mark (Reichsgau Bayerische Ostmark). In 1942, this area was renamed Reich District Bayreuth (Reichsgau Bayreuth). The rest of the territory in the south was annexed to former Austria (Ostmark), and within it divided between the Reich District Lower Danube Area and Upper Danube Area. See: http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudety

2These are mainly Jewish people listed in the registers of the deceased in the period 1939-1945 with the place of death given as Karlovo náměstí (Karlsplatz) and Pankrác Prisons. For example, Lesný Stefan, born 1909, Lemberg, Residence: Prague, Heinrichsg. 12, died on November 19, 1943, Polizeigefängnis Karlsplatz (NA Praha, HBMa 2841). The following internet search engines are recommended for searching foreign nationals who did not pass through the Terezín Ghetto:
Germany - Bundesarchiv - http://www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/directory.html
Austria – DOEW - http://www.doew.at/ausstellung/shoahopferdb.html
Israel – Yad Vashem - http://www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Welcome

3The database uses information from the following sources and funds of foreign archives and institutions: memorial books from the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau and the State Museum at Majdanek, memorial funds of the former concentration camps Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrück, Mauthausen and Gross-Rosen. Registers of arrivals, departures and reporting changes (Veränderungsmeldung) from the concentration camps Natzweiler, Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen, Stutthof (particularly from the funds of the National Archives in Prague, the ITS in Bad Arolsen and IPN in Warsaw).

4Serge Klarsfeld, Memorial to Jews Deported from France 1942-1944, New York, 1983. This source is completed with information from the DOEW database.

5The following memorial books were used: Berlin (Gedenkbuch Berlins der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozisalismus, Berlin: Hentrich 1995), Cologne (Die jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus aus Köln, Köln: Böhlau 1995), Hamburg (Hamburger jüdischer Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg: Schmidt 1995), Kreis Göttingen (Die jüdischen Bürger im Kreis Göttingen 1933-1945, ein Gedenkbuch, Göttingen: Wallstein, 1992). The following internet search engines were also used:
Leipzig - http://www.leipzig.de/de/buerger/freizeit/leipzig/gedenkbuch/suche/index.aspx
Karlsruhe - http://my.informedia.de/gedenkbuch.php?PID=2
Halle/Salle - http://www.gedenkbuch.halle.de/
Berlin-Neukölln - http://kultur-neukoelln.de/client/media/241/neukllner_gedenkbuch.pdf
Vienna University - http://gedenkbuch.univie.ac.at/

6In this case, the most important source for further study is the fund of the National Archives in Prague: Židovské matriky (HBMa) and Koncentrační tábory a okupační vězeňské spisy (Jewish Registers (HBMa) and Concentration Camps and Occupation Prison Records (KT-OVS) (in Czech).