JewishGen: Yizkor Book Necrology Database updated

Yizkor books are helpful resources when dealing with Holocaust-era Jewish genealogy research.

What are these books? These memorial books were written by survivors of communities across Europe detailing the history of the community, what happened there during the Holocaust, and often contain photos of the community and its residents.

Importantly, they contain the names of residents who lived throughout the history of the community and those who perished. The Necrology Database indexes the names of individuals who perished. It's an important database as few Yizkor Books incorporated name indexes, making it difficult for linguistically-challenged researchers to find names of interest.

Few of these volumes were written in English, and most were in Yiddish, some with sections in Polish, German, Russian and other languages. Survivors from around the world often contributed chapters and information. The Yizkor Book section at JewishGen provides translations of these books or chapters, with the work done by volunteers or funded by contributions for professional translations.

The necrology database is only a name index, and shows researchers in what yizkor book the information was discovered. Checking the books may provide more details about the individuals.

The database was updated with 8,800 entries from 17 books, and the complete current total is more than 225,000 names from 258 books.

Here are the updates:

-- Hungary: Mad (292 entries), Mezokovesd (749 entries).

-- Poland: Bilgoraj (37 entries), Chmielnik (1,231), Dabrowa Bialostocka (183), Jaroslaw (179), Jedrzejow (1,975), Krasnystaw (281), Leczyca (468), Przedborz (526), Raciaz (693), Warka (92) and Zambrow (106).

-- Romania: Gherla (Szamosujvar) (372 entries).

-- Slovakia: Sahy (Ipolysag) (1,060 entries).

-- Ukraine: Rava-Ruska (530 entries), and Stavishche (95).

Search the necrology database here.