Rare archival material, including important biographical information regarding the residents of Stanisławów (now Ivano-Frankivsk) before the onset of the Second World War, was discovered in the State Archives of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
This is the documentation produced by the last census taken by the Polish rulers of the city: thousands of registration cards filled out by home owners or by city officials, canvasing the city door to door, during the second half of August 1939.
The preparation of lists of residents in the city was intended to serve as groundwork for a new stage of general recruitment to the army, announced by the Polish government on August 13, 1939, following the escalation in tension between Poland and Nazi Germany. This explains why the census cards included a special paragraph defining the army classification of the resident.
The cards include the following paragraphs:
- Precise address (street name, house number, apartment number)
- First and last name of the resident
- Date of birth
- Religion
- Army classification
- Profession and place of employment
- Resident status (permanent or temporary)
and additional information regarding family members, employment, etc.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of these materials for a reconstruction of the image of the Jewish community of Stanisławów on the eve of its destruction and eradication during the Holocaust. An analysis of the data included in the census cards enables an examination of many issues relating to the socio-economic character of the community. This data is also enormously important to all aspects of genealogical study.
The new project recently completed by the JGB Organization makes the census data easily accessible to the public, in an easy-to-use format which enables searches according to different criteria.
All the usable information on Stanisławów Jews found in the census cards was processed and entered into a special table organized by family names.
See the Family index of the Jews of Stanislawow based on the 1939 census data
See the General index of Stanislawow citizens based on the 1939 census data
See the matching table of Stanislawow (Ivano-Frankivsk) streets names in 1939 and in 2017
The deciphering, processing and entering of the census cards was undertaken by a team of archivers from Lvov, led by Mr. Igor Smolskii, an employee of the central archive of Lvov. Copies of the original cards held by Ivano-Frankivsk State Oblast Archives
were supplied courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and we thank the Museum for this. The project would not have been possible without the initiative and indefatigable help provided by Pamela Weisberger, of blessed memory.
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