Felix Archive's Foreigner Files--Including Photos for People From Across Europe

A blog reader (John Durkan) reached out to me to see if I'd ever used Felix Archive's site with Foreigner Files.  I had not, and since this site is out of Antwerp, I never would have thought to look at it given my family's roots being much further east.  But he pointed out how many entries there were for Polish people (40,000, mostly Jewish), so I started looking what it might have for my non-Polish family.  And based on what I've found, this is a site that all of you should look at, no matter where your family lived in Europe.  I found documents, many including photos, some of people who were later killed in the Holocaust.  The documents are rich with genealogical information.

Antwerp Alien File for Mechel Feig

My grandmother had a pen-pal when she was growing up who lived in England named Toni, and the last she heard from Toni was that Toni was getting married, moving to Australia, and would send her new address when she knew it.  My grandmother never heard from her again.  She'd asked me if I could find her, and while I did find her family, it was after my grandmother had passed away.  Here's the story of how I found out how Toni was related to my grandmother.

Toni's parents, Mechel Feig and Chaja Rutner, were both killed in the Holocaust.  I never would have thought that Mechel would have left the vicinity in which he was born.  But when I searched this site for "Rutner," an alien file for Mechel resulted.  And this file asked for the names of his wife and parents (including his mother's maiden name)!  In addition to several (duplicate) photos of Mechel, it mentions that he's passing through Antwerp to visit London--like to see his two daughters, including Toni!  I've sent the photos onto Mechel's descendants in Australia.

This wasn't a one-off finding.  I found multiple files for various relatives, many of whom were later killed in the Holocaust, who passed through Antwerp and had to register.  Most of these were people who I had no reason to have thought they would have passed through Antwerp.

My third cousin three times removed (Chajim Ruttner) apparently passed through Antwerp in 1929.  Chajim was later killed in the Holocaust.

In addition to searching by surnames, you can also search by town of origin.  But note that often the spellings use French or Flemish spellings, so be creative.  John gives the example of searching for both Warsaw and Warschau if that is the town for which you're searching, and more caveats are in the quote below.  One branch of my family comes from the town of Kolodne.  I searched for "Kolod" which found spellings including "Kolodnoje."  Of course it also found someone with a similar surname, but it's worth weeding through those kinds of results for the ones that do match your town or surname.

Also account for different names used for the same town.  I found a record using the search "Nyeres" which didn't appear with a "Neres" serach--but I knew to do both searches since the town known as Felso-Neresznicze was also known as Nyereshaza. 

John had corresponded with the archive, and they gave the following advice:

"We pointed out that you should consult the detailled access  on the foreigner files for your research.  It is always a good idea to try out several spelling variations of names and places of birth. When a foreigner registered wth the immigration police or the local government, these officials did not always know how to spell a name or place of birth. This sometimes led to mistakes. There may also be typos in the detailed access. Not all written names and cities are equally legible. Therefore, our employees and volunteers may have made mistakes when retyping. If the town of birth, is included in the detailled acces, you may yourself do a query on it. I will provide you with an example for Czestochowa, see this search result. For Warsaw, I suggest you use ‘Warschau’ as criterium.

"The information in our database is public information. Therefore, you are of course free to share it with other persons or institutions or to draw their attention to it.

"You might also want to take our database on Holocaust victims from Antwerp into account for this research. Keep in mind that there are no actual files for these records, all available information is listed in de database. Requesting more information through the blue contacteer ons-button (contact us) will not result in anything usefull."

So how do you see if you can find records that relate to your family?  Simply go to https://felixarchief.antwerpen.be/ and type your search term into the box on the front page. You will need to register for a free account if there are digital documents that you want to see.  I translated the page into English with Chrome and registration was relatively straightforward.

While the majority of the records that I found of interest did have digital files associated, some did not.  There seems to be the choice of either going in person for some, while others asked for a justification of why you wanted access.  I put in a justification for one file for a relatively close relative, and I'll see if the justification is sufficient.

You can like my page on Facebook:

or follow @larasgenealogy on Twitter/X.

Receive new posts by email: