A few days ago, the wonderful Logan Kleinwaks posted the information that
the Polish State Archives has put its massive Lodz Ghetto collection online

at http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/39/278/0#tabSerie

This was brilliant news for me, and probably also for many others who are
or who will be researching their families in the ghetto, as well as,
of course, for anyone else generally interested in the subject. Although
both the U.S. Holocaust Museum and Yad Vashem have copies of this
collection, they are not viewable online, and as I am unable to get to
either Washington or Jerusalem, in the past I have turned to both museums
via email for help in finding documents about my family. While both have
been most kind and helpful, I am sure they will be relieved that I will
now be able to look things up for myself and will no longer need to
noodge them!

Logan mentioned that he did not know which of the almost 700,000 scans in
the collection have been indexed anywhere online and which have not. And
that is the question I too am asking in this email.

(The collection's full name is: Przelozony Starszenstwa Zydow w Getcie
Lodzkim / Der Aelteste der Juden vom Litzmannstadt-Getto / The Elders of
the Jews in the Lodz Ghetto. It is Record Group 15.083M in the USHMM
catalogue, and there is a USHMM Finding Aid online to the reel, section,
and file numbers.)

from what I can see, JewishGen, in its Holocaust database, has >from the

collection the 1944 Transports to the Chelmno Death Camp (Reel 305, file
no 1309) and the Ghetto Worker ID Cards (Reels 673-696, file no. 1011).
Ancestry.com, under the heading "Vital Records of Jews in the Lodz Ghetto,"
has both those datasets plus a number of others that seem to come >from the
civil records office (births/marriages/divorces/deaths) section on Reels
179-192 (file nos. 920-967). However, I can't find anything on Ancestry
that tells me exactly which files are indexed, and I don't know if all
the files in that section are, while there may also be other files indexed

from other sections/reels.

And here's the crux of the problem. When I find a record of interest from
the collection in either JewishGen or Ancestry, some have only a reel/file
number, which enables me to get to the right file in the Polish website.
The trouble is that I am then faced with a file containing hundreds or even
thousands of images, and no way of finding the image I want without
scrolling through all of them. Other records do provide a USHMM image
number, but this does not tie in with any file or scan number in the Polish
website, and therefore also leaves me with the prospect of scrolling
through hundreds or thousands of images to try to find the one I want.
Obviously, doing so is very time-consuming and hard on the eyes.

So, I am wondering if anyone can tell us specifically which reels/files

from the collection have been indexed in JewishGen and even more so in

Ancestry?

And is there is a cross-reference between the USHMM's image numbers and
the Polish website's file/scan numbers? I would be extremely grateful for
such information.

(Side note before anyone writes to point this out: Yes, I'm well aware
that both JewishGen and Ancestry also have additional Lodz Ghetto records,
but these come >from other sources, not the collection above -- their ghetto
population registers are >from the books printed after the war, not >from the
original population registers in this collection, and the hospital
illnessesand deaths are >from a different record group altogether.)

Thanking you most sincerely in advance,
Miriam Bulwar David-Hay,
Raanana, Israel.