Archives
The Lubartworld project retraces the social and migratory routes of more than 3,500 individuals across all continents, along with their persecution trajectories. Such a microhistorical and transnational approach requires large-scale archival research. The comparison of different corpuses raises a series of methodological questions. It is important to note that the vast majority of these archives are accessible without authorization. Explicit mention is made when this is not the case.
Official resident certificate issued in Shanghai, early 1940s, © Atlanta Jewish Times
The principles of our prosopographic investigation are twofold. First, we establish lists of persons who are presumably from Lubartów, while questioning what this means in practice. This is a sensitive issue that raises the question of the group’s boundaries [1]For an example involving the Jews from Lens, France during the Second World War, see Nicolas Mariot … Continue reading. In concrete terms, this means either searching local population census records, or examining other sources on the basis of place of birth. Second, we conduct name searches for individuals considered to be from Lubartów across a set of collections by cross-referencing the information available on their names, date and place of birth, etc. The corpus of archives is thus built up as the research progresses. Four sets of archival sources have already been identified.
Archives on Lubartów and its inhabitants
Polish archives pertaining to the starting point of the investigation—i.e. the history of Lubartów and its inhabitants—will be systematically collected in order to identify the individuals who make up the group. The aim is to especially expand our knowledge regarding social and economic stratification, demographic developments, and internal migrations across Poland. To this end, we draw our documentation from local, regional, and national Polish collections: population censuses, professional directories, and registers of births, marriages, and deaths; lists of communities, elections, political parties and associations; ghetto and post-war archives in the Lublin archives will be complemented by sources preserved by the Żydowski Instytut Historyczny (ZIH) (Jewish Historical Institute in Poland), the Polish National Archives in Warsaw, and the Institute of National Remembrance.
Page of the register of residents of Lubartów © Lublin archives
The Lubartów population register of 1932
The Lubartów population was registered by local authorities in the late 19th century, after independence in 1918, and once again in 1932.
Archives on the migrations of Lubartovians
This documentation will be completed through direct exploration of the primary sources preserved worldwide. Numerous national and international archive collections document the routes taken by people from Lubartów to the different places in the world where they migrated. The method systematically seeks out the individuals identified in phase 1 in the different countries they traveled through and migrated to, using nominative research tools. This section will be developed as the project progresses.
Arolsen Archives, Central Index of Names © all rights reserved
The International Tracing Service and the Bad Arolsen Archives
As early as 1943, the British Red Cross coordinated the first efforts to find missing persons in the territories newly liberated by the Allies.
The Migration Files of the International Refugee Organization
Many migrants registered with the International Refugee Organization after the Second World War.
Stamp of the International Refugee Organization © all rights reserved
Naturalization file, French national archives, BB/11/10786 art. 53552X28 © Archives nationales, France
Naturalization Files in France
Naturalization files are a formidable tool for reconstructing life stories. Unfinished puzzles, they reconstitute the pathways of an existence as it is related for and by the French administration, in very particular settings…
The Central Committee of Polish Jews and Registration Cards for Jewish Survivors in Poland after the Holocaust
The Central Committee of Jews in Poland (Centralny Komitet Żydów w Polsce, CKŻP) embodied from 1944 onwards the main assistance and representation body for Polish Jews
© all rights reserved
Archives on persecution and extermination
There are numerous sources relating to the persecution and extermination of the Lubartów Jews, often accessible online. They take on various forms depending on the country [2]Claire Zalc (Ed.), special issue “L’histoire de la Shoah face à ses sources,” Vingtième … Continue reading: convoy lists for deportations; files for the “aryanization” of companies and real estate; archives from the USHMM, Yad Vashem collections and the International Tracing Service archives, which include a heterogeneous body of nominative sources on concentration camps and extermination. There are also collections of written and audiovisual testimonies by Lubartów survivors and their children, published in the postwar press or gathered as oral sources: 39 testimonies are indexed in the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive and 4 in the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies.
convoy list 49, 2 March 1943 © Mémorial de la Shoah
Convoy lists
Work in progress.
The page is still under construction, please check regularly for the next update!
Genealogical approaches
Genealogical Databases: Key Tools for the History of Transnational Migratory Trajectories
Today, there are many genealogy websites…
© all rights reserved
Archives on transnational networks
Our historical exploration is also based on the archives of transnational networks, and hometown associations in particular. Created on the model of the independent Jewish organizations of Central Europe, as well as the mutual aid societies that existed prior to the welfare state, hometown associations (Landsmanshaftn) provided mutual aid and served as a space for social interaction. A memorial book (yizker bukh in Yiddish) was published in Paris in 1947. The archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York contain collections on these community ties, as well as those of the main Jewish organizations and the Joint Distribution Committee.
Lubartów memory book, 1947 © New York Public Library
Memorial Book
Work in progress.
The page is still under construction, please check regularly for the next update!
Hometown associations
Work in progress.
The page is still under construction, please check regularly for the next update!
Commemoration of The Lubartów’s Friends, Bagneux cimetery, France, 1960’s, MXII_14845 © Mémorial de la Shoah