Federal Archives exhibit strong curiosity about the destiny of Jews.
In 2023, the Federal Archives received over a thousand inquiries regarding the whereabouts of Jewish women and men who once lived in Germany during the Nazi era. This number includes questions regarding restitution, naturalization, and other citizenship matters. Former Germans who lost their citizenship due to political, racial, or religious reasons can now receive or regain their German passports. This policy also extends to their descendants.
The majority of these inquiries, as reported by the archives, are from Israel.
Apart from citizenship issues, the inquiries include requests for information from relatives, research projects based on historical records, and Stolperstein projects. Stolpersteine (or stumbling blocks) are commemorative stones placed at the last known residence of Holocaust victims. These serve as a reminder of the horrors faced by these individuals.
The Federal Archives maintain a database called the Residentenliste which contains information about nearly 810,000 individuals. This database aims to document the persecution of Jewish women and men during the Nazi era. It is compiled from more than 3.8 million documentation entries gathered from almost 1,800 sources. The online memorial book, created from the Residentenliste, has records of roughly 180,000 murdered Jewish people who resided in Germany during the Nazi regime.
This data collection can be traced back to population census records from the Nazi era. The objective was to systematically track down and persecute the Jewish population. In the 1939 census, 277,500 people were classified as Jewish, whereas in 1933, there were over 500,000 individuals.
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- The Federal Archives' interest in the destiny of Jews extends to examining the naturalization records of Jewish women and men who sought citizenship in Germany post-World War II.
- The growth in naturalization inquiries from Israel at the Federal Archives indicates a strong interest among Jewish descendants in tracing their family history and regaining German citizenship.
- Researchers and historical projects often utilize the Federal Archives' extensive database, the Residentenliste, to study the experiences of Jewish women and men during the Nazi era, including information about naturalizations and naturalization requests.
Source: www.ntv.de
