YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

During the years immediately following the end of World War II, the statistical departments of the local committees of the World Jewish Congress and the Jewish Agency for Palestine, with the assistance of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, compiled lists of Holocaust survivors.

Most of the information in the lists was gathered by the local Jewish councils that were struggling to establish themselves in various places. When Jewish survivors returned to their home towns and visited these Jewish councils in search of information about missing relatives and friends, they voluntarily registered themselves. The data they provided was forwarded to the statistical departments and was compiled into card indexes. Additional lists were compiled at Displaced Persons camps and in other refugee centers.

The lists listed below represent photocopies of the original lists published by the World Jewish Congress and by other agencies. They are available for use in the Reading Room of the YIVO Library at the Center for Jewish History.

Please note: In the early years of the mass registration of Holocaust survivors, material was gathered unsystematically and not according to accepted statistical methods, leading to the likelihood of inaccuracies and omissions. As such, these lists cannot and do not include all the names of Jews who survived the Holocaust.