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. 

Soviet WWII Military Cards from Central Archive of Russian Ministry of Defense

In this blog post I presented the most important online resources for Soviet Second World War research. Once you have done your Internet research, you may want to extend your search to archives. In this post I would like to share with you my tips on getting WWII military records from Central Archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense (TsAMO - Центральный архив Министерства обороны Российской Федерации). Its official website has no information in English, so I hope this will be helpful.

What Information You Can Find at TsAMO

The archive, located in Podolsk, Moscow region, holds a massive collection of Soviet/Russian military records since 1941 until nowadays. It is one of the largest archives in Russia, boasting the total of 20 244 243 files, including 10 951 948 from WWII period. They include documents on casualties among soldiers and officers, awards of the surviving military personnel, as well as their detailed path in the war.

Recently, I requested military records on a WWII veteran from Kyiv, Ukraine, for one of my projects. Although my client was confident that his grandfather was a captain during WWII, he did not appear in any online database. We had to turn to good old archives. And sure enough, his files (8 pages!) were found at TsAMO, including a tiny, but precious photograph.

Here are some examples of the records we received.

Military card, listing the years and places of military service, along with a photograph

Registration card, listing birth date and place, ethnicity, education, social status, military rank and service details, awards, spouse's name and address

How to Make an Inquiry at TsAMO

There are two ways to make an inquiry: in person and by regular mail. No emails, unfortunately.

Here is how you do it, if you cannot visit the archive:

1. Download and fill in an application form.

There are three types of forms, depending on the person's military rank: for a civilian, for a conscripted soldier or for an officer. If you don't know this information, make the best guess you can.

You can fill in a form online here or download and fill it offline: for a civilian working in a military unit; for a soldier serving in the conscription service or an officer. In both cases, the form needs to be printed out, signed and mailed. 

For the offline forms there are two additional options: a form to request a search for a burial place or a person's destiny or a form to request information about a wound or disease while on military service.

The forms are in Russian language, so if your Russian is not good enough, it is important to have someone help you with this step.

What to include in your request:

• Full name of the person
• Number of the military unit (omit, if you don't know it)
• Years of military service
• What you are looking to find (be specific what you want to learn: for example, awards, military actions, wounds etc.) 
• Purpose (e.g. genealogy, family research)
• Full name of the applicant 
• Address of the applicant

2. Attach documents proving family relationships, as well as an authorization from a relative, if the applicant is not a relative him/herself.

3. Mail the request form to the following address:
Центральный архив Министерства обороны Российской Федерации
142100, Московская обл., Подольск, ул. Кирова, д. 74.

Correspondence and Payment

As a general rule, Russian archives have to respond within 30 days after registering the request, but the mailing time is added. If you are corresponding from outside Russia, the mail may go via respective Consulate of Russian Federation, which would add more time. On average, it would be about a month and a half for each round of correspondence.

The archivists will first inform you whether or not they found anything for your inquiry. If so, they will ask send you an invoice to pay for the services.

The payment process is tricky. The invoice you receive from the archive is not one that you can pay internationally. It is in Russian-specific format and the easiest way to pay it is to have someone in Russia make the payment in one of the local banks, and pay this person via one of the international payment systems. This adds to the cost, but it is still very affordable. The fee for my inquiry was 292 Rub which is about 4-5 USD, so it is more about time and efforts, than money.

Within 15 days after receiving the money, the archive will forward the documents to you.

As you can see, this process requires patience, but it is totally worth trying, if you are determined in learning about your relative's path in Second World War.

A New Ukrainian Memories Archive

An interesting new Ukrainian online platform on oral history and memory has been launched recently, available at https://memory.org.ua/.

The project aims at collecting personal stories of Ukrainians in various historical contexts, like Second World War, deportations, repressions, the Holodomor, emigration etc.

You can search the stories by chronology, or by key words.  You can also upload your or a relative's memories on the website.

The website and the search is in Ukrainian only, but can be used with a translating tool.

For now the archive does not have a large collection, but if the project succeeds, it could become a useful tool for Ukrainian family research.

How To Search for Russian WWI Records Online

Some time ago I have written about online resources for Second World War Soviet records, which can be accessed here. There has been a great interest in the First World War research, as well, especially as this year will mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War. The number of participants and casualties were so great, that most Europeans had ancestors or relatives involved in WWI.

In this post I will put together the top online resources for researching individuals fighting in WWI in the Russian Imperial army. It is estimated that 1,700,000 Russian soldiers and officers were killed and 3,749,000 were wounded in this war. Naturally, these resources do not only include the territory of contemporary Russia, but also other territories, that were part of the Russian empire at the time. Although the Russian WWI databases are not yet as comprehensive as those for WWII, but there have been significant efforts in this direction. Here is my summary of the best available resources and some of the expected developments. 

• "In the memory of the heroes of the Great War of 1914-1918" (“Памяти героев Великой войны 1914-1918 годов”) is a web-portal, featuring the database of the fallen and awarded soldiers and officers. It was launched by the Russian Ministry of Defense with the support of the Federal Archival Agency and the Russian Historical Society and as of now has the most complete information on Russia's participation in the First World War. It contains 2,278,000 records from the “Card Index on accounting the losses in First World War 1914-1918”. The use of geolocation data of the battles and contemporary maps allows to visualize the route of a given person during WWI. Search is possible by multiple parameters, however, only in Russian. Here is a helpful guide by Vera Miller on searching this database without knowing Russian.

The encouraging news is that on July 20, 2018 the Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation has announced plans to allocate additional 700 mln Rubles for further development of the above database. Of course, it will take some time for the plans to be realized, but at least there is hope for future improvements. Among the plans are to add 4,530,000 records to the Card index of the Bureau for accounting losses in WWI 1914-1918; 3,150,000 records on prisoners of war (lower ranks); 5,100,000 records with names of the soldiers and officers perished in WWI; 830,000 award documents. I will follow the developments closely and will post updates on this blog. Stay tuned!

• First World War, 1914–1918 (Электронная база «Алфавитные списки потерь нижних чинов 1914-1918 гг.») is a database of 1,337,430 personal records of the WWI soldiers (lower ranks) of the Russian empire, compiled by the Union of Revival of Pedigree Traditions. The search form is available in English, but the results come up in Russian language. However, I highly recommend to spell names and other key words in Cyrillic letters, to avoid mistakes due to transliteration. As always, try different spellings of names and places.

• Nominal Roll of killed, wounded and missing persons of lower ranks 1914-1920 (Именной список убитым, раненым и без вести пропавшим нижним чинам [Текст]. - Петербург: Военная тип. имп. Екатерины Великой, 1914-1920. - 27 см. № 781-800. - [1914]. - С.12481-12800: табл.) is a digitized and searchable original document listing the victims of First World War (lower ranks) from Russian Empire, available on the website of Russian State Library.

• Officers of the Russian Imperial Army (Офицеры русской императорской армии) is a database of the Russian officers (soldiers not included here!) who served between 1900 and 1917. It contains 60,339 personnel cards and 24,755 photographs. This database is in Russian, but you can also use this link showing this page google-translated into English. For those who are not Russian language users this step-by-step instruction on how to use this database will be useful.

• Prisoners of the First World War ICRC historical archives, 1914-1918 is an online database that contains data from the International Red Cross archives, for all nationalities that took part in the Great war, including the Russian army. This resource and the search are fully available in English.

• Personal History project (Проект "Персональная история") offers a number of relatively small databases and lists related to Russian Imperial Army personnel, including First World War. They are relatively small and not user-friendly, but still can be used as additional resource.

How To Search for the Soviet WWII Records Online

Beginning of May is marking the anniversary of the last days of World War II in Europe. In the ex-Soviet countries 9th of May is known as the Victory Day. Despite it being often abused to promote nationalism and militarism, to most families, who lost their close family members, this is an important, but sad holiday. Having a great grandfather and other relatives perished in the war, I prefer to commemorate this event by remembering the deceased and reflecting on the colossal human losses in this horrible tragedy.

As a genealogist, I like to do this through documents. The good news is that researching WWII Soviet soldiers is one of the easier parts of Eastern European genealogy. The reason for this is the unique for this area degree of digitization and searchability of this subject. The online databases are very comprehensive, and impressive in their scale, even internationally. I am happy to share my tips on finding Soviet military records online.

If your ancestor / relative perished in the war, start with:

Memorial (Обобщенный банк данных «Мемориал») is a database of those Soviet soldiers who perished in WWII, launched in 2007. The database contains over 17 mln digital copies of documents about life losses of Red Army soldiers and 20 mln name entries of those who died in the Great Patriotic War. It also has information about the burials of over 5 mln soldiers and officers, as well as the names of 1 mln of Soviet prisoners of war in the Nazi captivity. The website has an English language version, including information about the project, its sources and most importantly the fields of the search. Although the search itself only works for Cyrillic letter key words, it is still a big help for non-Russian speakers to know what each field stands for. The documents found in this database are very useful for genealogical purposes. The so called “report on losses” document offers information like year and place of birth, military rank, place of death, home address and the closest relative.

If your ancestor / relative survived the war, start with:

Feat of the People (Обобщенный банк данных «Подвиг народа в Великой Отечественной войне 1941–1945 гг.») is a database on those who survived and received a military award / decoration, launched in 2010. It includes over 12,5 mln records about those who were decorated with medals "For Courage" and "For Military Merit", and cca 22 mln cards on the decorations awarded on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Victory over the Nazi Germany. Similarly to the above database, it has an English language version, with the same exception that the search words need to be in Russian. Also like the previous project, the work on this database is ongoing and constantly updated with new records. The information in this database includes the place of birth and conscription, military rank, and a detailed description of the “heroic deed” for which a person was decorated.

Next, go to this resource:

Memory of the People (Портал “Память народа”) provides a more modern and interactive database, based on the two databases, mentioned above. People and events from the military records were linked to locations, providing a unique opportunity for a great visualization. It shows you the exact itinerary of the researched person in the war on a map, from conscription till demobilization (or death), with all the battles and operations they took part in, as well as hospitalization and place of burial (if applicable). To see the itinerary visualization you need to click on "Боевой путь" button below the found entry under. On the downside, this website and the database do not have English language version.
This is how a war itinerary looks like:

Memory of the People also has a new page where you can upload or search for a photo of a Soviet WWII veteran.

Something to keep in mind, when using these databases, is that Memorial and Feat of the People require exact spelling of key words, while the Memory of the People allows for fuzzy search. 


Other resources


Documentation Centre Dresden, run by the Saxon Memorial Foundation (Die Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten), helps trace victims of the Nazi regime. It offers a number of online databases, including ones on Members of the Red Army held by Germany as prisoners of war, Soviet citizens who died in Saxony, and more. The Center also accepts inquiries, in particular about the inmates of former concentration camps in Saxony.

The Immortal Regiment (Бессмертный полк России) was launched in 2015. Despite the political agenda and controversy behind the project, their database is a great tool for relative search. Its unique feature is that the names and stories of the WWII veterans are added by their relatives. So, one can not only find a WWII veteran, but also get in touch with the living relatives.

All-Russian Burial Search Center (Всероссийский информационно-поисковый центр) is a unified database of the results of the military burial search expeditions (exhumation, identifying unknown graves, and other field trip findings). Their old search can be used as well. Unfortunately, only available in Russian.

The Reclaimed Names (Возвращенные Имена) is a relatively small database, containing only 209,647 names. Among its useful features is The Siege of Leningrad database, with 631,063 names.

Veterany project (Ветераны) of a TV channel, where relatives can upload their stories, names and photos of Soviet veterans

Ukraine’s Electronic Book of Remembrance (Проект «Электронная Книга Памяти Украины 1941-1945») is a database of the Ukrainian Union of Burial Search. It contains cca 929,120 names of Soviet veterans from Ukraine.

Martyrology (Мартирологія) database by Ukraine's National Museum of Second World War. It is work in progress. So far it only contains data from Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions.

List of the victims of mass-killings in Babi Yar, a suburb of Kyiv, Ukraine, 1941—1943.

List of Persons mobilized during the Second World War in Ukrainian SSR

Book of Remembrance of Jewish Soldiers Perished in the War with Fascism 1941-1945 (Книга памяти воинов-евреев павших в боях с нацизмом 1941-1945, Volume 4, 1997, Moscow.

Finland, prisoners of war and extraditions 1939-1955 is a database compiled by the Finnish National Archives, containing information on prisoner-of-war and civilian deaths on both Finnish prisoner-of-war-camps and camps for civilian internees in Eastern Karelia.

Soldat.ru offer a list of Soviet prisoners-of-war who died in Finland, 1941-1944, and a list of Burials of the Soviet military personnel, who died in Finland in 1941 - 1944.
 
Perm Krai prisoner-of-war database contains information of the captured soldiers from this area, the date and place of their captivity.

Soviet military graves in Hungary provides a list of Hungarian towns with burial places of Soviet military personnel, with details on their location, names of the buried persons.

Archival Resources and Research of Victims of Soviet Terror

In my previous blog post I described how to search for information about Soviet repressed relatives online. I strongly advise to always start with online research, as it is the easier and faster method of research. You can then use the clues found online to deepen your research at the archives. If you have not found any information in the databases, you should still proceed with the archival research, as the databases are far from being complete.

Archival research tends to be more time- and effort-consuming than online search, but it is also more comprehensive. Archival research on the Soviet repressions can be confusing, so in this post I will provide an overview of the available resources, the general approaches to finding the records, as well as some practical tips on accessing them. I mainly focus on Russia and Ukraine that I am most familiar with, but similar logic applies to other ex-Soviet countries. I hope this will help you find out the destiny of a relative or a whole family who became victims of Soviet terror.

Define the Type of Repression

The materials on Soviet repressions cover the period of 1917/1918 (year of creating the Extraordinary Commission known as Cheka) till 1991 (the dissolution of the USSR). For simplification of the document search, categorize the case you are researching. The most common categories are: 

• Criminal cases: relate to those persons who were convicted and sentenced by a court of a similar institution to imprisonment, camps or death penalty; by now many of them can be rehabilitated, but some are non-rehabilitated;

• Administrative cases: various non-criminal repressions like forced settlements within the dekulakization in 1930s, deportations from border territories (see: Population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine), "preventive" deportations of representatives of various ethnicities in 1940s (Germans, Crimean Tatars) etc.; 

• Filtration cases: relate to the former Soviet citizens, who were in the Nazi captivity in during WWII, including former Red Army prisoners of war, civil population of the occupied territories forcefully taken to German labour camps (Ostarbeiters), other displaced persons who returned to the Soviet Union after the war, and then placed in the so called filtration camps by the NKVD.

Where the records are located

The main difficulty lies in the dispersion of the KGB archival documents across countries and archives.

• Criminal cases: as a rule, all over the ex-Soviet countries these cases should be located at the central archives of of a respective security service (Central Archives of FSB in Russia, State archives of the SBU in Ukraine etc.) or its local department in the region where the trial took place. However, there can be exceptions.

• Administrative (non-criminal) cases: the documents are even more dispersed. In Russia they are most often held at the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) or at the respective regional department of Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of the region of arrest or birth of the repressed person. Some dekulakization and other administrative cases can be located at the state archives of the respective region. In Ukraine such cases are held by the state archives of the central or regional Archives of MIA of Ukraine. The lists of families forcefully re-settled from Poland to Ukraine after WWII are located at the State Archives of Lviv Region, independently of which region they were settled in.

• Filtration cases: In Russia they are mostly held by the Central archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense in Podolsk, Russia. Also, some cases can be found at GARF and Central archives of Federal Security Service of Russian Federation. In Ukraine some filtration cases were transferred to the state regional archives and the Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine (former Archives of the Communist Party of Ukraine).

How to find the right documents 

As demonstrated above, the distribution of cases is not always clear, but there are two main strategies you can follow to get started: 

Strategy 1. If you know the researched person’s place of arrest or residence at the time of repression, you should start with request to the departments of security service and MIA of that region in the respective successor country. If you do not know the place of arrest/residence, you can also address the above-mentioned authorities in the region of the person’s birth or punishment/serving sentence/deportation, if known. The key here is to make the best guess possible, but mistakes can happen. If you receive a negative response from these repositories, proceed with Strategy 2.

Strategy 2. If you do not know the place(s) of the person’s birth/residence/arrest/repression, you should send a request to the Main Information and Analytics Department of MIA of Russian Federation in Moscow, asking them to confirm the fact of repression and inform where the archival case is located. This institution has all the information about the persons who were convicted or repressed in some way in the former Soviet Union. In this case, you would still need to know the name, approximate date of birth and repression. You can also address the central archives of the security services and MIA of the successor state. After obtaining the answer about the location of the archival case you need, proceed with Strategy 1.

Of course, if you are willing to take the extra efforts and time, you can go ahead and apply all strategies at once.

How to access records

Who has the right to access the cases of the Soviet repressions? According to the current legislation in most ex-Soviet countries, it is the repressed persons themselves, their close relatives and heirs, their legal representatives or anyone after 75 years since the creation of the documents, with the consent of the repressed person or their legal heir/representatives.

There are three main ways to request records: by mail, by email and in person. There is also a possibility to work with the documents in person in the reading hall of the repository. This should be agreed upon in advance with the archives.

The requests can be completed in a free form, but make sure to include these elements:

• Name of the institution addressed and the addressee (head of the institution)
• Your full name, address and contact details 
• Your relationship to the researched person (supported with documents)
• The goal of the request (photocopies, archival certificate, other) 
• Full name of the researched person 
• Date and place of birth of the researched person (if not known, make the best guess)

You should also include any additional details about the person or repression, as it will help the search to be successful.

The requests should be submitted in the official languages of the respective country (Russian in Russia, Ukrainian in Ukraine etc.). If you cannot write in this language, I recommend you to prepare the request yourself and then have it translated by a friend/relative or a professional. Do not use googletranslate or other translating software for this purpose. Any misunderstanding or misinterpretation may affect the whole research.

Foreigners can also request information via International Red Cross organizations, but this would mean a longer waiting time, as it involves an intermediary. Addressing the right repository directly will yield the results in the fastest manner. Note that requesting time with most repositories is 30 days, which can be extended to 45 days, but it may vary in different archives.

Sources and further readings:

• Recommendations on the archival research on the repressed persons in Russia, a project of the Memorial Society (in Russian)
• Samples of various requests to get information on the repressed persons to Russian institutions (in Russian) 
• Online application to access information on the repressed persons at the Central Archives of FSB, Russia
  
• The Right to Truth, a guide published in 2012 on accessing information on repressed persons in Ukraine. The guide contains an annex with request samples for various institutions. (In Ukrainian)
• Downloadable forms for requesting information from the State Archives of the Security Service of Ukraine (in Ukrainian)
• A guide on the funds of the Central State Archives of the Archives of Public Organizations of Ukraine (In Ukrainian)
• Decree of the Ministry of Culture of Russian Federaration on the access to the criminal and administrative cases of the victims of Soviet repressions and filtration cases, 2006. (In Russian)
• Collection of Ukrainian legislation on access to the Soviet repression cases.
• Decree of the President of Ukraine On the declassification, disclosure and study of the archival documents related to the Ukrainian liberation movement, political repressions and Holodomors in Ukraine, 2009. (In Ukrainian)
• Law of Ukraine LAW OF UKRAINE: On access to Archives of Repressive Agencies of Totalitarian Communist Regime of 1917-1991, 2015 (available in English).

Top Online Resources for Tracing Victims of Soviet Terror

As I described earlier in this blog post, genealogy can be a means of dealing with traumatic events, such as genocides or political repression. These events usually lead to an increasing interest in personal history, in particular, publications of the so-called Books of Remembrance or Martyrologies, which list the victims and tell their stories. These records make a precious source for genealogy research, providing an opportunity for the relatives to remember the innocent victims of political regimes, discover details of their life, and possibly re-connect with lost family members.

One of such tragic pages in Eastern European history was the Soviet terror that happened on a truly massive scale. The estimates of the number of victims vary significantly, partly because of the difficulties of the definition. The most moderate accounts suggest about 10 million people were executed, imprisoned, sent to labour camps, expelled, deported etc. In this note I will list the best online resources to use when searching for an ancestor or a relative who became a victim of the Soviet totalitarian regime.

A few technical notes. While there is an abundance of smaller local projects, I will focus on the most comprehensive resources. They are primarily based on archival documents and testimonies from family members and witnesses. Although none of the databases has a complete account of the victims, they are constantly being developed and extended. The databases contain names, surnames, dates and reasons for arrest, destiny etc. Most of them, with some exceptions, are in Cyrillic characters, therefore using them would require some basic knowledge of the alphabet or googletranslating names and data.

Without further due, let us look into the online databases.

• Victims of Political Terror in the USSR (Жертвы политического террора в СССР) is the biggest and most comprehensive database of its kind for all Soviet Union. It has been developed by the Memorial society since in 1998, mainly by processing the Books of Remembrance (Книги Памяти) published in various regions of the former Soviet Union. By December 2017 the updated database with over 3 million names has been presented. According to the project developers, this represents about one-forth of the total number of the Soviet terror victims. The old version of this database is still available, but lacks some of the latest updates.

• The Open List (Открытый Список) is a Wikipedia-style online database of victims of political repression during the Soviet era (1917 - 1991), launched in 2016 by the Russian charitable foundation Reach Out. This project uses the data published by the above-mentioned Memorial society, as well as several other projects. It has a Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian and Belarussian sections (each in the respective language), incorporating several projects from these countries. Specifically, the Belarussian sections is based on Stalin’s Card-Index (Картатэка Сталіна) with over 60 thousand names. For Ukrainian data they used The National Data Bank of the Repressed, described in more details below. The Georgian part is very small at this time, only has cca 600 names.

• All-Russian online Book of Rememberance “The Repressed Russia” (Общероссийская электронная Книга Памяти «Репрессированная Россия») is developed by the Russian Association of Victims of Illegal Political Repressions. The database contains over 1.4 mln names. It includes some data from the Memorial project, but is also supplemented by the original work performed by cross-institutional working groups and researcher teams from over 60 regions of Russia.

• The Immortal Barrack (Бессмертный барак) is an ambitious pilot project launched in 2015. The project’s authors declared the goal to grow its database to 6 mln names. The database is using otherwise available Books of Remembrance, but it offers a convenient unified search in them. Its main feature called “Monument” (Памятник) contains portraits and personal stories added by relatives of the listed victims. It makes this database stand out as the most interactive and socially engaging among similar projects.

• The Stalin’sLists database contains information on those who were prosecuted by the personal order of Stalin and his close comrades, known as the “Great Purge” of 1936-1938. Strikingly, the lists from 1937-1938 contain 43 768 names, while between 1940 and 1950 – 1160 names. The database is searchable by name and by region.

• The Shot Generation or 1937 is a smaller database containing names of the victims of repressions in 1937 and beyond. There is a search by names and by categories of people (e.g. academics, party members, priests etc.). Although the navigation is not the most convenient, the project uses original sources other than Books of Remembrance, like historical books, encyclopedias and directories.

• The Reclaimed Names (Возвращенные Имена) is based on the index called "Books of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repressions in the USSR", published in 2004. It is a relatively small database, containing 209 647 names, but it can serve as additional source in Soviet terror related genealogical research.

• The Gulag Online project contains data and visuals on the GULAG prisoners, with special focus on the victims from Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary. Although the website offers a relatively small number or personal stories, it is a convenient English-language resource, with useful maps and a 3D visual of the camps.

• National bank of victims of political repressions of the Soviet era in Ukraine (Національний банк даних жертв політичних репресій радянської доби в Україні) is a result of a Ukrainian project, started in 1992. It includes the names of the residents of then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic who were prosecuted by the Soviet regime for political reasons. Although this database is not very large (209 465 names), the project has gathered original information that will be especially useful to those with Ukrainian ancestry. Search can be done by name, place of birth, place of residence and full text search.

• The Holodomor database (Голодомор 1932-1933) is another Ukraine-specific project, dedicated to the famine of 1930s in Ukraine known as the Holodomor. The website features a map to search by regions. On the downside, the database is not very informative, only contains names, places of residence, year and reason of death, without references to the source. The website has no information on the number of names there in the database. At the same time, this resource can be useful in Ukrainian research. Apparently, this database is based on the The National Book of Remembrance of the Holodomor Victims 1932-1933  (Національна книга пам’яті жертв Голодомору 1932-1933) which can be also viewed and searched online in separate pdf files by regions.

• Index of the Repressed (Indeks Represjonowanych) is a Polish project completed in 1988 - 2013 with support of the Institute of Popular Memory in Poland. It is mainly based on the Memorial society’s database, offering over 300 thousand names of Poles or those from the Polish territories at the time, who were subject to the Soviet repressions. Similar data is contained in the Kresy-Siberia database. Another useful online resource for Polish research is the Killed in Katyn index publication. It was a joint project of the Memorial society and Polish center "Karta", completed in 2015, listing the Polish prisoners of war shot by the Soviet authorities in 1940. The index is available as a pdf file, and can be downloaded and full text-searched.

• Political arrests in Estonia, 1940–1988 (Politilised arreteerimised Eestis, 1940–1988) was a collaborative project of several Estonian institutions, including the Estonian Repressed Persons Records Bureau and the Information and History Committee of the Estonian Association of Illegally Repressed Persons MEMENTO. This Book of Remembrance in 12 volumes was published in 1996 and holds information on the Soviet regime victims from Estonia. Available for full text search in pdf files by the link above.

• Genocide of the Lithuanian People (Lietuvos gyventojų genocidas) is a Lithuanian Book of Remembrance in 4 volumes published from 1999 till 2014. Although its content is not (yet) available online, you can send a request to search for a specific name by contacting the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Center (Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras) via email centras@genocid.lt.

I will continue to monitor the online resources on the victims of Soviet terror and will be making updates to this post with new links.

Once you find a relative in a database, or if you have not, but have enough reason to think a family member was under Soviet repression, you can then proceed with a deeper research in the archives. In the next posts I will be covering how to do archival research of the victims of the Soviet terror.

UPDATE:

• Victims of Anti-Polish Terror in the Soviet Union 1934-1938 (Ofiary antypolskiego terroru w Związku Sowieckim 1934-1938 / Жертвы антипольского террора в Советском Союзе 1934-1938) is a new database by the Center for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Mutual Understanding.  The database search is available in Polish and Russian languages. A related page (available in English) is dedicated to the "Polish Operation" of NKVD 1937-1938, which was especially brutal (139 835 victims, including 111091 shot, according to the database). Overall, it is estimated that at least 200 thousand ethnic Poles who were Soviet citizens were killed in the "Great Purge".