Vol. 6 of the Klarsfeld series: Documents Concerning the Murder of 29,000 Jews of Grodno by the Germans; 1941-1942. Ghetto and Deportations to Death Camps Cologne and Bielefeld Trails, Gathering Point before Transportation to Concentration Camps of Kelbasin, Treblinka and Auschwitz. Published in May 1989 by Jews from the town of Grodno, who survived the German occupation of 1941-1944 containing:

• verbatim translation of German record of The Court of Justice in Cologne in 1968 of two Gestapo officers in Grodno: Kurt Wiese (commander of Ghetto No. 1) and his superior, Heinz Errelis, commander of the two ghettos and the Kelbsin Camp.
• excerpts from the Judgment by the Court of Justice in Bielefeld in 1967 of Gestapo officers in Bialystok uezd, primarily on death camp transports.
• Apendices: published by the Beate Klarsfeld Foundation that provide a key to the original specific testimony in German

• RG53.004M Grodno Oblast Archive records, 1940-1944 [microform]. mss. Selected Records from the Grodno Oblast Archive (mss.) 99 pages, seven rolls of microfilm. ($210.00).
• RG10.052* 01 Records relating to the Chaleff family of Grodno, Poland mss. 31 pages. ($9.30).
• RG02.029 Nina Kaleska papers mss. 17 pages. ($5.10).
• RG22.001* 01 Records relating to the Soviet Union under Nazi Occupation, 19411945. mss.
• RG22.002M Selected records from the Extraordinary State Commission to Investigate GermanFascist Crimes Committed on Soviet Territory from the USSR, Archive of the October Revolution (mss.) [Towns in Grodno Guberniya that are described in the "Extraordinary State Commission to Investigate German Fascist Crimes Committee on Soviet Territory": Benyakoni, Berestovitskiy, Lida, Porechye, Porozovo, Radun, Rybnitsa, Sobakintsy, Sopotskin, St. Dubova, Svisloch, Vasilishki, Volkovysk, Voronovo, and Zaboslot] 220 pages ($66.00). and 99 pages ($810.00).
• RG15.070M Zespol podziemie prasa konspiracyjna = underground press, 1939-1966 (bulk 1940-1945) (mss.) 99 pages. Because of an agreement the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has with the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland, which holds the original materials, the Museum Archives cannot duplicate entire rolls of this collection for researchers until the researchers first receive written permission from the JHI. After JHI's permission, the Museum Archives would be glad to duplicate microfilm rolls.
• RG 53.002M The Sara Rosjanski Ross Donation Selected Records from the Belarus Central State Archives (mss.) 99 pages ($30.00).

Yiddish: ca. 4,200 cards, 8 mf; Hebrew: ca. 1,500 cards, 3 mf Complete set, 11 mf, $100
Unpublished Materials for Belarus Towns in the Archives of Yad Vashem. Belarus SIG does not know the contents. That information can be obtained by sending an email to the Yad Vashem archivist.
 
 

Revision lists (poll tax census) and parish register transcripts (metriki) are the two primary sources for pre-Revolutionary genealogy in Russia. In both, annual information for a particular region was bound together in a volume, regardless of the number of folios existing for a region. METRIKI or metrical books (parish registers), begin in the mid-18th century. Normally, of the two copies made, a transcript sent annually to a central ecclesiastical or civil office was the most likely to have survived the civil unrest. Jewish record keeping was mandated in 1835. Beginning in 1857, a state-paid Crown rabbi kept the registers. Of the two copies made, the official one was turned into the government.

REVIZSKIE SKAZKI (revision lists) were kept between 1719 and 1858 to support a national poll tax and enumerated 95% of the population in household groups. In 1718, Peter I ordered the poll tax to shift the taxation basis from households to individuals. An 80-kopeck annual tax was imposed on all male persons of the lower classes. Nobility, clergy, government officials, military, and the higher strata of the urban population were exempt, about ten percent of 19th century Tzarist Russia. Ninety percent of Russia's population was rural peasants. Separate volumes were kept for the different classes of society: dvorianstvo - nobility; dukhovenstvo - clergy; kupechestvo - merchant; meshchane - urban dweller; krest'iane - peasant; inorodtsy - native peoples; and kazaki - Cossacks. Each class had its own representative body, among these the Noble Assembly, the Merchants and Tradesmen Councils, and corresponding government institutions for peasant affairs. In accordance with these classes, various state and class institution records groups also were created. Jewish records are found mainly in merchants and urban dwellers. The merchant class was limited only to the most affluent. Urban dwellers included townsmen, petty bourgeois merchants, craftsmen, and workers in villages, small towns and urban areas. Each census required several years for processing.

Most Jewish records will be found in these Revision lists that form the main source for genealogical information about urban and rural inhabitants, particularly towns, settlements, and villages. The majority population recorded on these revision lists was unprivileged townsmen, petty bourgeois merchants, craftsmen, workers, and rural peasant farmers, the majority. These taxpayers population lists were compiled between 1719 and 1858, generally every ten to twenty years, in every town and district or surrounding rural area. Between censuses and after 1858, additional revisions were done in which persons skipped during the previous census were recorded. Additional lists were made from 1860-1900. These revision lists, arranged by guberniya, uezd, and smaller administrative units, are found in 500-1000 page volumes. Names of small cities, towns, and villages usually are not indicated in the volume title.

• 1^st Revision - 1719 (Vitebsk and Mogilev only)
• 2^ndRevision - 1743
• 3^rd Revision - 1761-1767, first to include females
• 4th Revision - 1778-1787, first conducted by the region fiscal chamber (kazionnaia palata), established 1775 to handle income and expenses of governmental institutions, collect taxes, and conduct revisions.
• 5^th revision - 1794-1808
• 6 ^th revision - 1811-1812 recording by separate "estate" (social class) began
• 7 ^th revision - 1815-1825 nobility and clergy no longer enumerated
• 8 ^th revision - 1833-1835, noted changes in families during the interim between revisions
• 9 ^th revision - 1850-1852, noted changes in families during the interim between revisions
• 10 ^th revision - 1857-1859, noted changes in families during the interim between revisions

PEREPIS 1897 (1897 All-Russia Universal Census) was Tzarist Russia's only universal census and detailed information about the householder and his family members for the first time. Conducted on January 28, mid-winter saw the least population mobility. The census tabulated the following: name, age, sex, family relationship, social class, occupation, religion, native tongue, literacy, birthplace, military status, and disabilities. A local copy kept by that commission. A copy was forwarded to the provincial census commission and sent to the Central Census Bureau in St. Petersburg. The name lists of that copy have been discarded. Only the statistical sheets have been kept. The local copy survived in some regional archives. These records in the fonds (record groups) of the 1897 Census Commission and the Guberniya Statistics Committee are the most relevant source of Jewish genealogical information, but are difficult to use. Only a small portion of these census lists was preserved in archives because the main goal of the census lists population statistical information. After processing these statistics, many of the lists were destroyed. Also, census lists, compiled according to the inhabitant's residence, have no alphabetized name index. All lists for a single town must be searched for a single name.

METRIKI: These unindexed Metrical Booksof Orthodox (70% of Belarus' population); Catholics and Jews (15-20%); and Protestants register births, marriages, divorces, and death of all inhabitants, separately by faith. Annual copies of metrical records include summary books on district territory or parts thereof, e.g. blagochinija or parish office. Historical Archives of Belarus has both separate record books and part of the summary books although the fonds are quite incomplete. Part of the metrical books for the end of the 19th and first decades of 20th centuries are temporarily stored in ZAGS archives.
 
 

Vital Statistic Records:

All religious community vital records up to 1917 should be in state historical archives. The Russian Empire State archives were responsible for western European churches and Jewish religious communities (kahals). Without exception, the governor's office or police office in each major Pale of Settlement city preserved one copy of every Jewish vital records book. However, many community books in archives are missing or record only a few years. Some were lost during the 1918-1920 Civil War. In the 1920s, when the communists closed churches and synagogues, materials disappeared because, unfortunately, Soviet archives kept the books of many communities for only a few years and then destroyed them. ZAGS (Ministry of Justice or former KGB archives) holds a portion of the 1890-1917 books.

Military Records: The Russian State Military Historical Archives in Moscow is the only archive holding all Tzarist Army pre-1917 materials, including all staff and sub-units of land forces documents (including Cossack armies). Regiment and sub-unit are the fond divisions. To find a soldier or officer, one must know the exact name of their regiment or sub-unit. Some exceptions may be senior officers found in the General Headquarters and High Commands of departments of the service (infantry, cavalry, etc.) records. The most records exist from 1910 to 1917. The archives has very limited reference aids. The only catalogs available are card index to medical staff, alphabetical name cards of officers' service records from the second half of the nineteenth to early twentieth century. However, local archives in the record groups of the Military Draft Offices might be useful for Jewish research. Lists of draftees exist. RAGAS can conduct searches for local military records in Belarus. Poland may hold materials for the areas under their control between W.W.I and W.W.II.
 

Legal Records: These records contain information about property transfers, legal and commercial contracts, gifts, wills, land plots, cattle transactions, and other life events such as Court and Office of Public Prosecutor criminal and civil cases.

Local Governmental Administrative and Economic Offices: Fonds may contain information about the administration, sale, and lease of agricultural land, forests, mills, inns, and breweries and distilleries. Lists of specific populations and foreign settlers; provincial boards; city, petty-bourgeois, merchant, and craft lists; estate owners; state, provincial, and district commissions (land, lists of rural societies) may be other possible sources for Jewish research.
 

Offices of Governor, police, and prison inspectors. These records contain information about rebellion participants.

Educational Institutions: Information about students, teachers, schools, high schools, institutes, colleges, universities and other educational institutions may be useful resources.

Directors: City and business directories (published in most of provinces from 1850 - 1917), newspapers (obituaries, classified sections, and published notices), and cultural, business, and public organizations publications all may be additional sources.

Documents of the western part of modern Belarus (formerly Grodno guberniya of the Russian Empire) mainly are stored in The National Historical Archive of Belarus in Grodno. This archive mainly includes information for territory of Grodno but has some information for part of Vilna guberniya. (Most Vilna uezd information can be obtained through the Lithuanian Archives. See the home page under "Archival" for more information.) A description of the various archives in Grodno Oblast follows. When requesting research from any of these institutions, increase successful search outcome by listing:

• all known persons within a family

• provisional years of their birth, marriage, death
• religion
• residence by province, district (uezd), volost (settlement)
• social class/estate or occupation (noblemen, peasants, merchants, petty bourgeoisie etc.)
• possible year of emigration if relevant

The price for research and services by archives of Belarus "charges and additions entered by the order of chairman Goskomarhiva 28 April 1999, ? 19 setting the research fee": For non-Belarus citizens, advance payment of US$80 dollars and final settlement at US$4 dollars/hour for research. They claim that the average cost of genealogical research comes to about US$300 dollars. No price for copies is specified, as copying still may remain illegal in Belarus archives as of April 2000.
 
 

Address: pl. Tizengauza 2, 230023. Grodno, Belarus

Telephone: (8-0152 44-94-66, 47-28-56

Director: Batrakova Karina Petrovna

Contents: 1200, more than 408,000 dyelo, 4,500 running meters. Scientific help includes over 11,000 books and brochures, and about 5,000 copies of periodicals.

Territorial Scope: former Grodno province [guberniya] and former Vileja, Disna, Lida, Oshmiany districts [uezds] and Vilna guberniya of the Russian Empire.

Chronological period: sixteenth century to beginning of twentieth century.

Fonds Information Useful for Jewish Research:

• city and social-class self-management (city affairs, municipal dumas, uprav, Grodno provincial nobility, deputy assembly, district leaders of nobility, petty-bourgeois uprav, volost boards etc.)
• Judicial establishments, Offices of Public Prosecutor and criminal and civil courts, the Grodno district court, the High notary of the Grodno district court
• city and district police administrations, zemskih courts
• Industrial and building establishments, rural and forestry (Grodno provincial management of agriculture, provincial and district commissions, forest areas etc.)
• finance-tax, credit bodies and statistical registration (Grodno provincial state chamber, exchequers, banks)
• educational institutions (management of national schools of Grodno province, grammar schools, schools)
• public health services, public and charitable organizations
• manors
• religious records

• Personal genealogical information

• property descriptions contained in Fonds of self-management, finance-tax establishments, and religious faiths.
• inventory descriptions of manors; data on pledge, sale, inheriting of property, personal correspondence.

• Local government bodies: Grodno governor's office, Grodno provincial board, Grodno provincial statistical committee, and a collection of estate representatives. Documents of archive (especially Fonds of the Office of the Grodno provincial board) contain much information on former Grodno guberniya history.

• population data and structure

• Territorial administrative divisions: legal status of estates
• Office of the Grodno governor, Grodno provincial and the district military contain investigative commissions on political affairs. Included are revolt of 1863-1864, operations of insurgent groups, and destiny of participants.

• Economic

• features of landed property and land tenure in documents of Fonds of the Grodno provincial presence on country affairs
• Grodno provincial and district zemleustroitel'nyh commissions, zemskih chiefs, etc.
• economic establishments: information on construction, repair of buildings and constructions, a status of the local industry, rent, sale of state manors, forests, realization of credit operations, statistical data on province contain.
• public and charitable organizations contain data on the development of public health services, sanitary inspection, mass and epidemic diseases, a status of almshouses, shelters, orphaned houses.