Germany Compiles List of Jews Persecuted by Hitler
September 18, 2008
The list contains the names of Jews who lived in Germany from 1933 to 1945 and gives information such as addresses and deportation dates. The index is to be distributed among leading archives to help descendants research the fate of their families.
The government said Wednesday, Sept. 17, that it would give the list to Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Washington's Holocaust Museum, the Jewish Claims Conference and the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany.
Not released to the public
Privacy laws prevent the full release of the list to the public as yet.
The list is not definitive and will require more work to make it more accurate, said officials from Germany's Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation, which compiled it.
The list was drawn up over a period of four years. The government and a foundation that oversaw the compensation of Nazi-era slave laborers provided 1.57 million euros ($2.24 million) to finance the project.
It constitutes another step towards the "reconstruction of the Jewish identity," said foundation director Guenter Saathoff.
Between 500,000 and 550,000 Jews lived in Germany before 1933. By the end of the war, there were only some 20,000 Jews living in the country, but most of these were not of German origin. Most were eastern European Holocaust survivors who had ended up in German displaced persons camps.