About the available data

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is providing access to these databases, containing partial information on prisoners of and deportees to Auschwitz, as a way of commemorating the victims of the Nazis.

We should remember that the Nazis destroyed most of the documents they created and that a list with the names of all Auschwitz victims does not exist. If the name of a person looked for does not appear in this database there is still a chance it is included in other documents, which are not online yet. To find out more you should contact the Office for Information on Former Prisoners.

Since 1991, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has been creating a data base containing source data on the victims of the camp. It is based on original SS records. It will probably never be possible to compile the names of all the people deported to Auschwitz, since the Archive holds only about ten percent of the documentation created in Auschwitz. The great majority of the records were destroyed on orders from the SS; other archives around the world hold a small portion of the documentation. The data that we are making accessible is more than a valuable source of historical information. It is also a memorial to the people whose tragic fates are enmeshed in the history of the Auschwitz camp. 

There are about 650 thousand individual personal records, compiled on the basis of 70 separate collections of original documents, in the Digital Repository at present we give the online access to the information based on 445 163 entries. There were more than 400 thousand prisoners registered in the camp. The names of many prisoners are repeated, sometimes with variant spellings, in different document collections. In addition, many of the documents we deal with are incomplete. There is ongoing authentication of all the available data about people imprisoned in the camp.

Additional information can be obtained by writing to the Digital Repository. 

The Memorial Books include information on more than 70 thousand Poles deported to Auschwitz. The contents are based on partially extant archival documents and correspondence with former prisoners and their relatives.

This data is the fruit of years of research by Museum staff and was published from 2000 to 2006 by the Museum in cooperation with the Auschwitz Preservation Society in Memorial Books.

Partially extant documentation generated by the camp SS administration is the basis for the lists of names available in the databases. This documentation may contain inaccuracies or errors. 

Access is provided to this material in good faith, in accordance with the statutory, legislated mission of the Museum to inform about the history of the Nazi German Auschwitz concentration camp. Anyone who feels that access to this information violates his or her rights or interests in any way is urged to contact us immediately.