The Great Patriotic War turned out to be a difficult ordeal that claimed the lives of a huge number of people. The fate of many soldiers, partisans and civilians who, by the will of fate, found themselves in the occupied territories still remain completely unknown. It is for such cases that a special memorial website was created. Finding a soldier of the Great Patriotic War by last name or clarifying the fate of a distant ancestor is not difficult here. To understand the unknown history of your family and find out where the remains of the missing soldier are buried, it is enough to know basic information about the participant in the war. The remaining actions necessary to obtain information will be done automatically and will not even require effort. And only in special cases, when the standard search system does not bring results, the user will have to resort to an advanced version of the query. But even in this case, obtaining the required information will not take much time, since the portal is designed in such a way that anyone, even those farthest from modern technologies Human.
Memorial to the memory of the people: search by surname 1941-1945 missing
To understand how useful the next portal is, you need to take a closer look at the information available on it and its main characteristic features. Such a feature of the mentioned site is the fact that it was created by order of the Ministry of Defense and functions with the active assistance of the government department.
The main purpose of the memorial site is to search for WWII participants by last name. An additional goal can be called no less significant. It consists of collecting, processing and subsequent systematization of information about people who died or disappeared during the war.
If we do not focus on the technical aspects of the goal set for the portal, we can say that it was created to help relatives and descendants of war veterans (participants, victims). With its help, they get the opportunity to find out what happened to a distant ancestor, understand where his grave is, and clarify his fate.
But it should be noted that not all warriors are present in the current database. Most of the available materials are still awaiting processing and will be added to the extent possible by portal administrators and individuals working for the benefit of the service.
Memorial: find a soldier of the Great Patriotic War by last name - main archive
As mentioned above, working with online service is as simple as possible and does not require anything special from users. To move on to the memorial to search for those killed in the Second World War, you will need to perform a number of basic actions:
- open the portal home page;
- find a special search form for it (sometimes you need to scroll down a little);
- indicate data the right person(last name, first name and patronymic, rank, date of birth, if the listed information is known);
- Click the button that starts checking the existing information base.
If the results you receive do not contain the hero you need, you can only use the advanced search. There are 3 different options for specifying the required data:
- first of all, users have the right to select the databases in which the check will be carried out;
- then you can specify detailed information about the person (to do this, you will need to click on the small plus located at the bottom of the proposed list);
- the latter approach allows you to use lists of military posts and reserve regiments.
It is important to emphasize that using the service does not require mandatory registration and creation of a personal account. This is not necessary to work with the portal.
Memorial website: search for WWII participants by last name of those who returned from the war
Despite the absence of the need to register to work with information databases, a similar function is still present on the portal. It is extremely simple and does not require anything unusual from visitors to the online service.
To create a personal account on the OBD memorial and find a soldier by last name and year of birth, you will need:
- open the official portal and click on the sign prompting you to log in;
- after loading the authorization window, you need to switch to the registration subsection by clicking the corresponding button;
- Next, you will need to fill out a short form, in which you must indicate your login, last name, email and a strong password (the remaining items can be filled in as desired);
- Next, all you have to do is click the “register” button and wait for a letter to arrive at the specified email asking you to confirm the creation of your account;
- The last step is to follow the received link.
Having confirmed the creation account, users will have the opportunity to use all the functionality of the service and receive the maximum allowable amount of information.
Authorization and password recovery
For those users who have already understood the features of creating a profile on memorial.ru, searching by last name, first name and patronymic will definitely not cause any difficulties. Especially if you log in before using the existing database on the portal. To do this you only need to perform 3 simple steps:
- look at the site and click “login” (in the upper right corner);
- enter your login and password in the window that opens (you can use an email address instead of a login);
- Click the button prompting you to log in.
If all information and combinations have been entered correctly, after a few moments you will be able to use the virtual service. Otherwise, you should try to log in again, entering your password and login more carefully and accurately. If this does not help, all that remains is to use a special form of recovery. To do this you will have to:
- open the already mentioned authorization page using the approach described above;
- follow the link that says “forgot your password?”;
- indicate the email used during registration (if the user did not change it later, in the account settings);
- wait for the letter to arrive and follow the instructions received.
Memorial - website of the Ministry of Defense: search by last name of WWII participants
In addition to the information already indicated, it is necessary to mention that the portal contains links to various sources information, catalogs and other information bases, from where all important information is collected on www.obd-memorial.ru. Lists of missing persons are listed right there in the “sources of information” section.
In situations where the user has difficulties or plans to express gratitude for the help received, you can use a special feedback form. To do this you will need to get to the very bottom of any open page site and click the appropriate inscription. After that, all that remains is to indicate your last name and contact information, select the subject of the appeal and leave the text. If necessary, you can attach links to the text that will confirm the arguments of the applicant. There are no other methods of communication with the administration of the information service.
You tell me: “Why look?
Those who were killed here have long disappeared,
Those who could have been waiting for them have also left,
And all of them have long been forgotten..."
From the song of the search engines
Material on the topic
“Immortal Regiment” campaign: everything a participant needs to know
The movement arose spontaneously and within a few years became an all-Russian tradition dedicated to the memorable date of May 9th. The essence of the action is that participants take to the main streets of the city with photographs of veterans of the Great Patriotic War, paying tribute to their memory and feat. In 2017, the gathering of participants in Moscow will take place on May 9 from 13:00 to 15:00, starting at 15:00. You can get to the procession from the Dynamo and Belorusskaya metro stations (without restrictions).
Almost every family in our country has relatives who went missing during the Great Patriotic War. Some scattered information is kept in the family, some still have photographs. But when you see the name of a loved one in a report from the Memorial base, for example, for some reason you more clearly imagine a train under fire, trenches... And it seems that if you find out at least something else, your soldier will not be so lonely in his unknown grave. And you hope that the soldiers who have not returned will not be left without prayers.
Foma told about where and how to look for information about the burial place of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War Dmitry Alexandrovich Belov, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Director of the Research Center for Regional History of Volgograd state academy postgraduate education, vice-president of the International charitable foundation"Battle of Stalingrad".
Step 1. Where to start
Most quick way find your relative who died in the Great Patriotic War - this is a generalized Memorial data bank, the database of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO):
For this:
Material on the topic
5 myths about the beginning of the Great Patriotic War
June 22 - the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Military historian Alexey Isaev spoke about five, in his opinion, the most significant myths and misconceptions associated with this day.
At this stage of the search, to begin with, a last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, preferably a title is enough. If he is Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, then, of course, it will be more difficult. You have to be persistent to make sure that this is exactly the person you need, you will need details - full name of wife, mother, name of the village, city where he was called from, place of birth (in accordance with the administrative-territorial division of the USSR in pre-war years - approx. ed.).
Worth paying Special attention to the fourth point. There are some really stupid spelling mistakes in the database. My great-grandfather's name was Andrei Kirillovich. I wrote "Kirillovich" as normal person with two l, and then I thought that not everyone knows how to spell Kirillovich...
Kirillovich typed with one “l” and immediately found the burial place. Also Filippovich - maybe Filippovich, and with one “p”, and so on. Such moments must be taken into account.
Ideally, the result of your search should be a document about the burial place of a relative and information in which military unit(army, division or regiment) he fought.
If there is no information, one can hope that the search teams that are looking for and burying the remains of soldiers will find something. If the search engines managed to find someone, they contact the military registration and enlistment office and look for relatives themselves.
But you can continue the search on your own. In this case, you need to collect as much information as possible in order to start qualitatively new stage search.
What can help us with this?
Step 2. Gather additional information
Have the letters survived?
The most important thing in letters is the number of the field postal station (FPS) on the stamp of the envelope. You can use it to determine the number of a division, regiment, etc.
A powerful resource: a lot of documents on military topics, memoirs, collections. If you know the division number and the battle area, then you can at least general outline find description.
Database "Feat of the People"
TsAMO project.
This is a database where there is information about soldiers awarded medals.
Soldat.ru
This resource has several hospital databases. Dial the hospital number, press Enter and see which division it served.
And there are many more reference books on types of troops, shoulder straps, and weapons.
But the most valuable thing is on Soldat.ru forum http://soldat.ru/forum
If you register on it, you can get advice from completely unfamiliar historians, specialists, anyone who is interested in searching, and military registration and enlistment office employees.
To register, at the top of this site (see the lower right corner in the picture above), you need to click the “Registration” button. Next you need to fill out the registration form.
Then create a topic (it’s better to name it briefly, for example, “No.__-th Infantry Division. I’m looking for a relative”). After this, your request will be able to be read by anyone who visits this site. Do not doubt! There will be enough such strangers and caring people. Everyone will help you with the information they have. Some will answer, advise, consult, others will recommend sites, scan the documents you need, excerpts from books, etc.
Other resources
There are many more resources that publish interviews with veterans and biographies. But it is worth considering that these sources, as a rule, do not represent historical value either for the researcher or for those who want to use this material in their search.
If, for example, for my current work I need memories of veterans who fought at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant on certain specific dates, then I will not get the expected result - these electronic databases are not filtered by date and place.
In addition, veterans tell the story as they personally see and remember it. They may confuse dates, even years. Here the interviewer must listen carefully, know about what battles we're talking about and correct information.
Step 4. We write a registered letter of request to the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO)
Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense
About the camps for Soviet prisoners of war located in the territory of the Reich, and helps to obtain information about former Soviet citizens who died during the Second World War in camps and work teams in the territory of the former German Reich.
International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen in the north of the federal state of Hesse.
You can submit a request if you know that your relative was captured and could have died in a German concentration camp.
In addition, the MSD archives contain 2,800 personal belongings of prisoners, the owners of which are known by name. This is about personal belongings, received here for storage mainly from the Neuengamme (2,400) and Dachau (330) concentration camps. However, among them there are also personal items of people imprisoned in the Hamburg Gestapo, in concentration camps Natzweiler and Bergen-Belsen, as well as in the transit camps of Amersfoort and Compiegne.
Photos of monuments with the names of fallen soldiers In connection with numerous requests, we clarify that the editors of the magazine “Foma” do NOT provide services to assist in the search for missing persons.
Splash photo: Mikhail Savin. Calculation of the Soviet 45 mm anti-tank gun changes position.
You tell me: “Why look?
Those who were killed here have long disappeared,
Those who could have been waiting for them have also left,
And all of them have long been forgotten..."
From the song of the search engines
Almost every family in our country has relatives who went missing during the Great Patriotic War. Some scattered information is kept in the family, some still have photographs. But when you see the name of a loved one in a report from the Memorial base, for example, for some reason you more clearly imagine a train under fire, trenches... And it seems that if you find out at least something else, your soldier will not be so lonely in his unknown grave. And you hope that the soldiers who have not returned will not be left without prayers.
Foma told about where and how to look for information about the burial place of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War Dmitry Alexandrovich Belov, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Director of the Research Center for Regional History of the Volgograd State Academy of Postgraduate Education, Vice-President of the Battle of Stalingrad International Charitable Foundation.
Step 1. Where to start
The fastest way to find your relative who died in the Great Patriotic War is the generalized Memorial data bank, the database of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO):
For this:
- We go to the website of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, where the most complete electronic database in our country of those killed in the Second World War is located: www.obd-memorial.ru
- fill out the columns “Last name”, “First name”, “Patronymic”, “Year of birth” of your deceased relative:
- Ideally, we get a result of several lines with more or less complete information and we continue to study materials in the direction of concretizing the exact burial place.
- In the surname or first name, or patronymic, we change the letters, selecting them in such a way as if they were written by an illiterate person or the original document is poorly readable and there are alternative reading options. And you may come across additional documents from the archive's database.
At this stage of the search, to begin with, a last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, preferably a title is enough. If he is Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, then, of course, it will be more difficult. You have to be persistent to make sure that this is exactly the person you need, you will need details - full name of wife, mother, name of the village, city where he was called from, place of birth (in accordance with the administrative-territorial division of the USSR in the pre-war years - approx. ed.).
It is worth paying special attention to the fourth point. There are some really stupid spelling mistakes in the database. My great-grandfather's name was Andrei Kirillovich. I wrote “Kirillovich” like a normal person with two letters, and then I thought that not everyone knows how to spell Kirillovich...
Kirillovich typed with one “l” and immediately found the burial place. Also Filippovich - maybe Filippovich, and with one “p”, and so on. It is also better to try to change the letters in the surname and first name in case they were written by an illiterate person or the original document is difficult to read. Such moments must be taken into account.
Ideally, the result of your search should be a document about the burial place of a relative and information in which military unit (army, division or regiment) he fought.
If there is no information, one can hope that the search teams that are looking for and burying the remains of soldiers will find something. If the search engines managed to find someone, they contact the military registration and enlistment office and look for relatives themselves.
But you can continue the search on your own. In this case, it is necessary to collect the maximum possible amount of information in order to begin a qualitatively new stage of the search.
What can help us with this?
Step 2. Gather additional information
Have the letters survived?
The most important thing in letters is the number of the field postal station (FPS) on the stamp of the envelope. You can use it to determine the number of a division, regiment, etc.
A powerful resource: a lot of documents on military topics, memoirs, collections. If the division number and the fighting area are known, then you can at least find a description in general terms.
Database "Feat of the People"
TsAMO project.
This is a database where there is information about soldiers awarded medals. The database is not complete yet, not all documents have been scanned yet.
This resource has several hospital databases. Dial the hospital number, press Enter and see which division it served.
And there are many more reference books on types of troops, shoulder straps, and weapons.
But the most valuable thing is on Soldat.ru forum http://soldat.ru/forum/
If you register on it, you can get advice from completely unfamiliar historians, specialists, anyone who is interested in searching, and military registration and enlistment office employees.
To register, at the top of this site (see the lower right corner in the picture above), you need to click the “Registration” button. Next you need to fill out the registration form.
Then create a topic (it’s better to name it briefly, for example, “No.__-th Infantry Division. I’m looking for a relative”). After this, your request will be able to be read by anyone who visits this site. Do not doubt! There will be enough such strangers and caring people. Everyone will help you with the information they have. Some will answer, advise, consult, others will recommend sites, scan the documents you need, excerpts from books, etc.
Other resources
There are many more resources that publish interviews with veterans and biographies. But it is worth considering that these sources, as a rule, do not represent historical value either for the researcher or for those who want to use this material in their search.
The Great Patriotic War took loved ones from almost every person: someone lost their father, someone’s grandfather or great-grandfather went missing. And often people do not even know where and when their relative died, where he is buried, and do not have the opportunity to visit his grave. However, now, thanks to Internet technologies, you can study secret materials of those times and find a mention of your a loved one.
Go to the website obd-memorial.ru. Here you can find information not only about Russian soldiers, but about all residents of the USSR who died or disappeared during the war and in the post-war period. Go to the "Advanced Search" tab. To make your search more extensive, check the boxes next to each item in the menu on the left. Indicate the last name, first name and patronymic of the person you are looking for in the box. Next to it, click the “Search” button. After this, the search result will appear on the screen. Please note that there are 20 lines per page, so multiple pages may be available for viewing. If there are namesakes in the database, you should specify the date and place of birth in order to proceed to viewing data about your relative. By clicking on a person's last name, you will be taken to his page on the website. All available information about the wanted person is stored here. In particular, you can find out the following:- place and date of recruitment;
- military rank;
- date of removal from the lists;
- reason for departure;
- name and number of the information source.
You can also contact the editors printed newspapers, who are usually actively searching for missing people before May 9. Believe that everything will work out for you - and you will definitely find your relative!
To organize in archivessearch for relatives killed and missing in WWII 1941-1945 by last name is necessary
1) Collect as much information as possible about the wanted front-line soldier (surname, time/place of birth; region of military conscription; place(s) of service; branch of service; number(s) of unit(s); any official and unofficial notices of hit captured; field mail numbers from sent letters, etc.)
2) Access all this data to the following websites:
a) a thematic resource of the Ministry of Defense called “United Data Bank “Memorial””*. Address: www.obd-memorial.ru.
b) electronic bank “Feat of the People in the Second World War 1941-45.”
Includes numbers and texts of award orders. Address: http://podvignaroda.mil.ru/?#tab=navHome.
c) “Memory of the People”
This resource contains information about the locations of military units at all stages of the Second World War. Address: https://pamyat-naroda.ru/.
G) " Immortal Regiment"
The public initiative websites moypolk.ru and polkrf.ru allow you to search for front-line soldiers using their own database, media publications, order numbers, archival documents, stories of WWII participants, etc.
3) Send requests to search for those missing in action during the Second World War to unofficial archives and databases collected by social activists (the names of these can be found using Yandex and any other search engine).
4) Contact specialized archives (the capital's State Military Archive and/or similar archives of the former Soviet republics; archives of law enforcement agencies, etc.). When visiting a selected archive in person, a statement may be required indicating your personal data, the purpose of collecting information and an approximate list of requested documents.
5) Send a request to search for those killed and missing in WWII 1941-1945 to the archives of Germany and the countries on whose territory the war was carried out fighting. The main building of the German Federal Archive is based in Kobletz, and the largest branches are in Freiburg, Berlin and other cities.
6) Contact the local archives of German cities and states (Dresden Documentation Center at the Saxon Memorials organization, etc.)
7) If you have information about the approximate place of death of the wanted relative, contact local military-patriotic detachments, a list of which is available on the Sporf.ru resource (subsection "Region. Representatives").
Algorithm for searching for a missing relative
The more data is known about the front-line soldier, the easier it is. Ideally, in addition to the full name of the person you are looking for, it is advisable to have information about his place of birth, date and place of conscription, military unit number, etc. As a result of analyzing documents provided by online resources, you can track life path ancestor For example, information from award documents will allow you to find out about the feats performed by a relative, the family’s residential address during the Second World War, etc.
"Missing"
Such wording in search results should in no case be a reason to stop searching. Using documents about places of service, you can “calculate” the hero’s fellow soldiers and learn from them the details of the fatal battle. There are known cases when soldiers who had lost their memory “surfaced” under other names. The main thing is not to stop searching, using any, even the most insignificant, “clues.”
It would not be superfluous to establish contacts with representatives of search teams (the personal belongings and remains they find often shed light on events of interest).
It is important to remember that soldiers who were captured were included among the missing. To search in this direction, it is advisable to contact the Russian Ministry of Defense and the German Documentation Center located in Dresden, where data on citizens of the Soviet Union captured by the Nazis is collected.
What to do in case of failure
Consult with like-minded people and people who have been searching for a long time. From them you can find out the addresses of thematic forums and social networks (some sites are entirely devoted to discussing the front-line life of specific units and formations). The forum of the All-Russian Family Tree website contains links to a great many links and archives, request forms to various departments, search recommendations, etc.
OBD "Memorial"
* Generalized computer data bank "Memorial" - an information archive created by presidential order No. pr-698 dated April 23, 2003 with information about the defenders of the Motherland who fell and disappeared during the Second World War (1941-1945) and the post-war period.
The mission of the Memorial OBD project is to provide citizens with the opportunity to establish the fate and places of burial/captivity/disappearance of their relatives.
The creation and content of the website www.obd-memorial.ru is carried out by specialists from the ELAR corporation.
Data about the soldiers of the Red Army and partisan detachments gathered by employees of the Home Front Service
- - departmental archives (Navy, Air Force, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, KGB/FSB);
- - branches of the Russian State Military Archive;
- - branches of the State Archive of the Russian Federation;
- - specialized departments of the Ministry of Defense;
- - open sources (newspaper publications; postal correspondence data; reports of irretrievable losses; documentation of medical battalions and hospitals; trophy cards of prisoners of war; burial passports, etc.).
The result of this interaction was the creation of a global (and regularly updated) information and reference system with more than 13.4 million digitized pages of archival documents and 42 thousand burial passports. OBD "Memorial" - the largest electronic archive missing soldiers of World War II war in the world.
On Obd-memorial.ru millions of scanned copies of documentary primary sources with information about personalities are available for study. Visitors to the portal can search for the necessary information about front-line soldiers online. Access to the portal is open 24 hours a day.
The search for missing participants of the Second World War of 1941-1945 can be done on websites (addresses are listed above) that have solid databases with the names of fallen soldiers discovered by search teams. To submit a request, you will need to enter the full name and, if possible, additional information about the wanted person (his age, rank, military awards, etc.) The databases on these portals are constantly updated, so a negative result of the first attempt may turn into a positive one after some time.
An alternative to these sites can be contacting regional military-patriotic clubs, the coordinates of which can be found on the Internet. Search engines will add a photo of the missing relative with the personal data of the deceased into a common database, after which the same enthusiasts across the country will join in the search for the fighter.
And finally, you can write (call) the “Wait for Me” program, the organizers of which are looking for missing soldiers all over the planet. To get into the project database, you will need to fill out a form on the portal "Poisk.vid.ru". The more information about a missing relative is known, the higher the likelihood of identifying him. Search activities begin immediately after the questionnaire is received. According to statistics, “Wait for Me” employees weekly look for information about several dozen people, about a third of whom are ordinary soldiers, officers and partisans who have not returned from the war.
Attention! Because of large quantity processing of new requests has been temporarily suspended. You can conduct a search yourself using the databases “Memorial” (obd-memorial.ru), “Feat of the People” (podvignaroda.ru) and “Memory of the People” (pamyat-naroda.ru) - searching them is absolutely free.