Yizkor (Memorial) Books

According to JewishGen:

Yizkor books were written after the Holocaust as memorials to Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust. They were usually put together by survivors from those communities and contain descriptions and histories of the community, biographies of prominent people, lists of people who perished, etc. They are often embellished with photos, maps, and other memorabilia.

Yizkor books are valuable to genealogists, since the books may include biographies or photographs of relatives, or may include family members in a list of people who perished. Yizkor books also give important background information about the history and Jewish life in a particular community.

Yizkor books can be valuable, not only to genealogists, but to anyone wanting to learn about Jewish life and culture in the communities that vanished in the Holocaust.

Today, with the, sadly, ever-decreasing number of Holocaust Survivors amongst us, the value of these Yizkor books is growing exponentially. Even though they may be gone, the Survivors continue to speak to us through these books and the information that they continue to provide to us is invaluable.

These Yizkor books were predominantly written in Hebrew and/or Yiddish. In order to make them as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, there is now a concentated effort to translate them, in their entirety, into English. As these translations become available, we will endeavour to make those English translations available on this website. Links will appear below: