World of Yesterday

This database was compiled by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The Claims Conference was founded in 1951 as a body to negotiate with the German government for material compensation for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution.

The conference administered the Program for Former Slave and Forced Laborers, a one-time payment for persons "compelled to perform work in a concentration camp...a ghetto, or a similar place of incarceration under comparable conditions."

The Conference had the responsibility of verifying the assertion of an individual that he or she had been used as a forced laborer during World War II. In order for these claims to be approved or rejected, it was necessary to locate documentary proof of such forced labor. In order to do this, the Conference employed people in Israel and the United States to examine documents held in various archives and to look for the names of the claimants.

A database was prepared using materials held in Israel's Central Zionist Archives and Yad Vashem. Those names in the resulting database were then compared with the names of claimants. Presence of a name on this database does not necessarily mean that an individual was either a claimant through the Program for Former Slave and Forced Laborers nor a survivor, but rather an individual whose name appeared in record(s) held in the Central Zionist Archives or Yad Vashem in Israel.

While the information relating to each individual varies, in every case it includes family and given name and "place of persecution", as well as a citation of the document from which the name was taken. In some cases, birth information is given.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has the finding aids for the original source material underlying this database. The finding aids consist of two files listing the sources in the Central Zionist Archives and in Yad Vashem. See Source list.

Caveat: Because the dates entered in the date fields were not entered using uniform guidelines, it is not possible to be sure of whether the months and days may be transposed in certain circumstances.

Database

The following fields appear in the database:

Name:
Other Surname: Alternate surname, including maiden name of women
Birth/Age:
Address: City or other place where person was located at time list was prepared
Country: Country where person was located at time list was prepared
Code: Claims Conference internal code, linked to location in archival materials
Doc Code: Code # for archival document; see Source list
Comments: Comments by Claims Conference researcher