O.52.3 - Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Germany - General Documentation

O.52.3 - Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Germany - General Documentation
 
 The purpose of the Yad Vashem project - to prepare an Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Germany - is to perpetuate the history of the communities that were destroyed during the Holocaust. The historiography of the communities focused on countries and sometimes on districts, but not on the history of the local communities. With the increase of interest in the local communities, this Record Group serves as a very important source for historians and researchers working in this field.
 
 As part of the preparation of the volumes of the Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Germany, many sources were gathered during the 1960s regarding the history of the communities. As part of these preparations, letters were sent to municipalities and local authorities in West Germany, requesting that they complete a questionnaire regarding the fate of the Jews who had lived in those places during the Nazi period. Many of the municipalities and authorities sent lists of the Jewish residents who had lived in these places, including details regarding the fate of the Jews. Additionally, the staff working on the Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Germany checked local news items in the main German-Jewish newspapers regarding the Nazi period, as well as information from two newspapers published outside Germany (the London "Jewish Chronicle" and the Jewish weekly newspaper published in Switzerland) in which there were news items that could not be published in Germany. The data they found regarding the communities was recorded on file cards.
 
 A file was created for each community that would have an entry in the Encyclopedia, and the sources that were collected relating to the community were assembled in the file: photocopies of articles and archival documents, file cards with information that appeared in the newspapers and other sources, statistical data, and so on.
 
 As the project progressed, rough drafts for each Encyclopedia entry regarding a community were added to the file. Upon the completion of the project and the transfer of the material for publication, the files were handed over for safekeeping in the Yad Vashem Archives.
 
 The Sub-Record Group includes materials and correspondence with various places, and includes all of the places that were not included in encyclopedias that were already published, meaning that it does not include files for the Bavaria Communities (these are included in the O.52.1 Record Group; see item 1130910 in Sapir), the North-West Germany Communities (these are included in the O.52.2 Sub-Record Group; see item 11340917 in Sapir), and the Wittenberg - Hohenzollern - Baden and Hessen Communities. Nevertheless, this Sub-Record Group includes materials related to various places in those areas which were not included in the communities' files. 
 
 The Sub-Record Group includes, among others, primary resources which were collected for the Encyclopedia entries for the Rheinland-Westphalia - Saarland - Pfalz Communities, whose preparation was not completed. 
 
 The material is an anthology of very detailed information regarding the history of the Jewish communities in Germany throughout their years of existence and until their destruction by the Nazis.