Searching the Arolsen Archives

If your ancestors come from Europe, there is a great chance they got caught up in the nightmare which was the Holocaust. Indeed, you may have Hidden Jewish Ancestry because your family escape or survived the Holocaust and decided to keep their Jewish ancestry a secret from subsequent generations. I get a lot of contacts from people who discover they are Jewish on a DNA test and come to find out their mother or their fathers entire family was wiped out by the Nazi's and as a result, they decided to conceal their Jewish identity. 

If this is your story, you can search the Arolsen Archives to find records about your actual family. As in you might find records on your family and discover family you did not know you had. 

This remarkable archived can also be of use to people living outside Europe whose families concealed their Jewish identities in the 1700's or 1800's. As an example, when I searched one of my suspected Jewish family names, Hertig, I found many members of the family were victims of the Holocaust. It's a gruesome discovery, but, you may confirm your family was Jewish by the fact they were victims of the Nazi's. 

Anyhow, if you suspect you have Jewish ancestors, you should search the Arolsen Archives to see if you find them there. It can be grim. But, if you find your family there, share what you find with your living family. So these lost members of the family are not forgotten. 

Here is what they say about themselves in the FAQ section of the website. 

"The Arolsen Archives are the international center on Nazi persecution with the world’s most comprehensive archive on the victims and survivors of National Socialism. The collection has information on about 17.5 million people and belongs to the UNESCO’s Memory of the World. It contains documents on the various victim groups targeted by the Nazi regime and is an important source of knowledge, especially for younger generations.

To this day, the Arolsen Archives answer inquiries about some 20,000 victims of Nazi persecution every year. For decades, clarifying fates and searching for missing persons were the central tasks of the institution, which was founded by the Allies in 1948 as the “International Tracing Service”.

Research and education are more important than ever to inform today’s society about the Holocaust, concentration camps, forced labor and the consequences of Nazi crimes. The Arolsen Archives are building up a comprehensive online archive so that people all over the world can access the documents and obtain information."