A large number of Holocaust-themed lectures will be presented at the
26th
Annual Conference of the International Association of Jewish
Genealogical
Societies to give attendees the latest and best information for what
many
regard as holy work.

* Peter Lande will discuss the new resources available at the U.S.
Holocaust
Memorial Museum archives and library. The USHMM's database of 3 million
records, usually available only at the museum, will be accessible for
use in
the Conference Resource Room. Lande's lecture is scheduled early in the
Conference so that he can be available to help conference attendees
access
the database.

* James Connelly, of the USHMM Registry of Holocaust Survivors, and
Marian
Smith, Senior Historian at US Citizenship and Immigration Services,
(formerly the INS), will introduce the new INS Foreign Address and
Occupation Index, a new set of records recently acquired by the
Registry of
Holocaust Survivors at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The index
relates
to immigrants who arrived in the United States in the decades after
World
War II.

* A searchable database of Jews in the Russian army killed and
missing in
action during WWII will also be available in the Resource Room.

* A representative of the Shoah Foundation will be present at the
Conference
providing computer access to the videotaped testimonies of Holocaust
survivors.

There will be over three dozen Holocaust-related lectures, including the
following:

* A History of Anti-Semitism as It Laid the Foundation for the Holocaust
* Lost Identity of a Child Survivor of the Holocaust
* Ordinary Exile: The Fate of Austrian Jewish Refugees in Belgium and
France, 1938-1945
* What's the Next Step After Finding a Testimony for Someone in the Yad
Vashem Database?
* Looking for the Only Unaccompanied Children Rescued >from the
Holocaust by
America: Who They Are and How We Found Them
* Cyberspace Memorials for Ancestral Towns: Creating a Shtetl Page
* Another Source for World War II-Era Genealogy: The National Catholic
Welfare Conference Bureau of Immigration New York Port Office Records
* Theresienstadt: The Town Hitler Gave to the Jews
* Project to Reconstitute the Destroyed Shtetls of Europe
* In the Crosshairs: Operation Rescue: HIAS, Marseille (1939-1944)
* Greek Jews and the Holocaust
* China: Unusual Resources for Family Research
* Genealogical Information in Memorial Books >from Germany and Austria
* Memory of the Holocaust in Latvia: A Contemporary Debate
* Records of Eastern European Jews in the Archives of Central Asia
* Introduction to the Arolsen Files: Their Origins and Practical Usage
* Recreating Ariogala, a Lithuanian Shtetl
* Murderous Medicine: How to Trace Some Victims of the Holocaust
* Holocaust Tracing, Family Searches, and Wartime Documentation Free
Through
the Red Cross
* Ancestral Shtetl Remembrance: How to Organize a Shtetl Project
* The Documentation, Protection and Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in
Central and Eastern Europe
* Yizkor Books: Two Complementary Projects
* Computer lab: Using the Pages of Testimony and Consolidated Surname
Index

For more information about the Conference and Conference
registration, visit
the Conference website at www.jgsny2006.org.

"The Jewish Week" has just published two interesting articles related
to the
Conference.

"Connecting the Ancestral Dots"
(www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12688)
gives an overview of the lectures, computer labs, and tours that will be
offered.

"Father of 'Mother' DNA Study"
(www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12689), an
interview with
Dr. Doron Behar, the geneticist who discovered that 40 percent of
Ashkenazi
Jews can trace their ancestry to just four women and who will be
speaking at
the Conference about the study and his future research.

Gloria Berkenstat Freund
26th Annual IAJGS Conference Program Committee Chair