Day 5 of the International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. My entire summary, day
by day, can be seen here.
The day started by listening to Alex Denysenko talking about the destiny of deported Hungarian Jews (and Polish Jews) as seen in the Stanislawow 1941-1942 death records. He has been working on this project for 3 years in conjunctiom with the Rabbi in Ivano Frankovic.
He found strange books (called IGW records) which were records of the kehila of Stanislow from 1938-1942. He indexed most of these records and hared some records with the rabbi and other friends. The information is all available online at http://jgaliciabukovina.net/142881/article/registration-books . There are also records for Nadworna and Podvolchyska.
Information on each record includes the name of the person, nationality, addresses of death, age, cause of death, and names of physicians. This is quite unusual for nazi period. The most typical cause of death was malnutrition.
It is noteworthy that several hundred Hungarian citizens are included in records--and even one US citizen!
The records are in good condition in the Preszyml archives. Transcription is still in progress, but what has been completed is already on the website.
There is a possible connection to the Kamenets-Podolski group of deported Jews--this is of interest to me because many of the Yad Vashem documents for relatives who had remained in Europe on my Rutner, Eizikovic, and Joshowitz sides, said they had been taken to Kamenets-Podolski. There are lots of hypotheses and discussions of how the Hungarians got there.
Alex had maps of ghetto and showed how Jews would have entered the ghetto.
They recorded the addresses of death as well, and he showed some pictures of the actual buildings. He would like to add the photos to the database.
He noted that there is a huge mass grave in the town--but no memorial whatsoever. He is working with Yad Vashem to get them commemorated.
Kamenets-Podolski is known as the largest place of execution of Hungarian Jews. Many of those who weren't recorded in this death books were shot in mass executions or deported to KP and killed there.
After the talk, I talked to Alex about a potential trip to Ukraine. We had previously emailed, but it was good to be able to talk through potential itineraries in person!
After lunch, I went to the Hungarian SIG meeting. Vivian Kahn mentioned how many Hungarians (my family included) ended up in McKeesport, PA.
She mentioned how H-SIG is a cirtual organization with members all over the world--the H-SIG mailing list has 1400 subscribers in 12+ countries.
All of their projects are accomplished by volunteers. An astounding 1/4 million new records were added to database in the past year. They launched the first jewishgen partner project with FamilySearch Indexing and are continuing work with vital records filmed by family history library. Volunteers are needed for indexing and arbitrating.
She then talked through the status of various census indexing efforts:
Done 1828 index (complete property census for property owner)
Done all available 1848 census
Done all available 1869 census--
They just discovered 1869 Ungmidge census in Uzhhorod.
There are a total of 556000 records indexed in the vital records project. They need indexers!
They recently indexed more records including from Maramaros--where my family lived.
They have added significantlu to their Holocaust databases and index of Hungarian burials.
Then was the most exciting (to me) part. I've been aware for a while of the Maramaros project, run by two incredible women (Brooke Schreier Ganz and Sandy Malek), and I've indexed a bunch of their books. (To read more about this fabulous project and learn how you can help transcribe--the records are easy to read, go to http://www.maramarosjewishrecords.com .)
So the exciting news is that they have obtained the 1895-1906 civil records for Maramaros! They expect them to be transcribed by this time next year. Unlike the earlier volumes, these were kept on a town basis, not just for Jews. There is lots and lots of info in these records which include records of birth, marriage, and death.
That was the end of my conference, which was topped off by having dinner with two fellow Shpikov descendants. One had recently visited Shpikov, and we saw her pictures while eating and chatting. I unfortunately had to rush out to catch a flight. I'm typing this somewhere above 10,000 feet.
This conference was an incredible experience. I'll write up my overall impressions after I get some sleep and get caught up at work.
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