Main Repositories of Soviet WWII Records

As I described in this blog post, online resources on Soviet WWII records are very comprehensive. But, they are not complete. Having done your online research, you may want to turn to archives if:

1. you did not find your ancestor in the databases, or
2. you found your ancestor, but would like to have further details

Soviet WWII documents are spread throughout various archives and countries. Here are the main repositories holding such records.

• Central Archive of Ministry of Defense (known as TsAMO - Центральный архив Министерства Обороны РФ) holds a massive collection of records, such as Soviet military personnel cards, lists of casualties, German cards of Soviet prisoners of war. I wrote in detail on how to make an inquiry at this archive here. 

Soviet military card, source: Wikipedia

• State Archive of Russian Federation (known as GARF - Государственный архив Российской Федерации) has collections of the Extraordinary Public Committee on investigating the crimes of German Nazi occupants and the damage they caused to Soviet citizens, collective farms, public organizations, state enterprises and institutions of the USSR, of separate camps, as well as collections on repatriation. Inquiry form can be found here.

• Russian State Military archive (known as RGVA - Российский государственный военный архив) holds so-called "filtration cases" on the Soviet prisoners of war and forced laborers, who returned to Soviet Union. Some of this type of records can also be found at regional state archives or archives of security services in Russia and other ex-Soviet countries, usually, in the region where the "filtrated" person was born or lived before the time of war. Inquiry form is found here.  

Filtration case cover, source: Gulag Museum

• National Museum of the History of Ukraine in Second World War (Національний музей історії України в Другій Світовій війні) in Kyiv, Ukraine, accepts inquiries about Ukrainian WWII soldiers and officers. 

• Federal Archive of Germany (Bundesarchiv) will help you establish the fate of Soviet military personnel, who were captured by the Nazi army. Inquiry form in Russian and German is found here.