Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust  is a new podcast dedicated to sharing the history of the Holocaust through the first-hand testimonies of survivors and witnesses. It draws on recorded interviews from Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies (http://fortunoff.library.yale.edu/podcasts/), which comprises the oral histories of over 4,000 people.  The first six episodes of the inaugural ten episode season are available on  Apple Podcasts, google Play and Stricher and you can follow the podcast on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/thosewhowerethere/)and Twitter

Narrated by Eleanor Reissa, actress and Yiddish theater director, and produced with historical oversight by Professor Samuel Kassow,

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

Abby Pariser asked :

  In Lyon, France, the Museum of the Resistance, has huge book listing the 71,000+ Jews deported from Lyon in World War II.  I found 5 of my Pariser family that I had no idea about before this. 

  Are there other French cities with similar books listing the Jews, the "Juifs," deported to the camps?

There were about 6,000 Jews deported from Lyon and its prefectoral area during World War II, not 71,000. Altogether, from the entire France were deported around 76,000 Jews, and, counting those who died in internment camps in France and those who were executed in France, this amounts to around 79,000 persons with about 3950 survivors in 1945.

Regarding the specific question, a Memorial Book to the Jews deported from France was first published in 1978 by Serge Klarsfeld. The latest printed version of this Memorial is from 2012. Since then, I maintain a free, searchable version of this Memorial online, at  https://stevemorse.org/france   including corrections and additions. With this tool, it is possible to get the lists of the deportees who were born in a specific town or region, or those whose last address was in a specific town or departement, those who were sent to a given internment camp in France on their way to the concentration and extermination camps, or any combination between these criteria.

Regarding Lyon, a Memorial to these Jews deported from Lyon and around is about to be erected at one of the Jewish cemeteries of Lyon.

Jean-Pierre Stroweis

Jerusalem

The U.S. National Archives Online Social Security Numident Files Database (1936-2007) includes some Application SS-5 files. These files have information about the person on the form from when they applied for a Social Security Card which is the SS-5 form. Note: not all data will be on each Numident file. Many of the Numident SS-5 files contains:

Name, Social Security number, date and place of birth, names of parents, other last name

The information from the National Archives Numident database is free.  Go to:

https://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-description.jsp?s=5057&cat=all&bc=sl

If you need to order the SS- form from the Social Security administration there is a fee. There is information on this in the article from Genealogy Roots see below.

Numident is the numerical identification system in the Social Security’s Administration’s computer database file of an abstract of the information contained in an application for a U.S. Social Security number (Form SS-5). This the definition from Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numident

Genealogy Roots Blog wrote about this on November 6, 2019, See:

https://genrootsblog.blogspot.com/2019/11/nara-online-social-security-numident-ss-5-forms.html

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

On November 15, I posted to this forum about the proposed fee increase by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for genealogical files. USCIS proposes a raise in its two Genealogy Program fees from $65 to $240 and $385 and possibly more if you require paper copies.  These are a 269 percent and 492 percent change respectively (if I did my math correctly).  While I wrote only about the genealogy fee increase in the 92 page proposed rule there are other immigration fees being increased.

A coalition of genealogists, historians and records access advocates have created a portal about this with suggestions.  Please see: https://www.recordsnotrevenue.com/. 

This is an uphill battle and only with thousands of comments submitted will we have a chance to change these proposed fees.

Please read the rule and submit your comments before December 16 the deadline. The coalition also suggests you copy your comments to your U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators. To contact your US Senator go to: https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state&Sort=ASC

For your US Representative go to https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

There are finding aides if you don’t know who your elected officials are.

To read the proposed rule see:

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-11-14/pdf/2019-24366.pdf

The Genealogy section is Section N which starts on page 62315-62316.

See Section 103.40 for Genealogical Research Requests on page 62359.

There are fees with DACA renewals with and without ICE transfers and I do not know why there are genealogy requests tied to DACA renewal fees (page 62329, 62331).

This is a 92 page proposed rule the remainder does not affect genealogy.

Written comments must be submitted on or before December 16, 2019.  Comments must be identified by DHS Docket No. USCIS– 2019–0010 by one of the following methods:

•Federal eRulemaking Portal: http:// www.regulations.gov

•By Mail: Samantha Deshommes, Chief, Regulatory Coordination Division, Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, 20 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Mailstop  #2140, Washington, DC 20529–2140.

No hand delivered or couriered comments will be accepted. Nor will they accept anything on digital medial storage devices such as CDs/DVDs or USB drives.

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee