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*German town genealogies and parish register indexes on the Internet | *German town genealogies and parish register indexes on the Internet | ||
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=== Finding "displaced persons" === | |||
“We understand German people from the Northern Poland (Pomerania) area were sent out of the country to Germany when Russians moved in after WWII. Is there any way of knowing where these Pomeranian people settled? | |||
Answer: | |||
Towards the end of World War II, the Germans had to flee from the advancing Russian troops, mostly on foot, to the West. Many families were split up along the way. These displaced persons eventually found new homes all over West Germany. Some eventually emigrated to the United States, Canada, and other countries. | |||
The International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen was created to document all victims of the Nazi regime and to facilitate bringing families back together whenever possible. | |||
Its collection includes much information about displaced persons. You can learn more about this organization through its website http://www.its-arolsen.org/en/homepage/index.html. Recently the ITS made its material available to the public for research. | |||
Heimatkreise, or “homeland organizations” exist for various Pomeranian counties in Germany today. They strive to preserve both the cultural heritage and historical materials, and facilitate communication among their members through regular get-togethers, newsletters, and special interest groups. Members include those who were born in the respective Kreis or had their permanent residence there, as well as their descendants. Many groups have homepages on the Internet ( usually in German), which can be located by entering “Heimatkreis + [county name] “ in a search engine such as www.google.de. The Heimatkreis may be able to help you locate relatives or others who came from the same area as your ancestors. | |||
See http://heimatkreis-schlawe.de/index.php for an example of a Heimatkreis homepage. Reunions of former residents of various villages are listed in a calendar. This page also includes links to village pages and pages of interest to the genealogist. | |||
The genealogical society for Pomerania, the Pommerscher Greif, has volunteer research specialists for many Kreise [counties], who know about available sources and strive to encourage dialog between researchers. A contact [Ansprechpartner] list is found at http://www.pommerscher-greif.de/aktiv/ansprechpartner.htm . | |||
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[[Category:Baerbel's_Column]] | [[Category:Baerbel's_Column]] | ||