Kraków, Poland, Jewish Inhabitants Registration Forms, 1940 (USHMM)

This database contains more than 20,000 registration forms completed by the Jewish inhabitants of Kraków (Krakau), Poland, in 1940 and coordinated by the Jewish community in Kraków in response to a Nazi order. The majority of forms include a photograph.

The original questionnaires are held by the National Archives in Kraków.

Historical Background

After invading Poland, the German army occupied Kraków in the first week of September 1939. Some 56,000 Jews lived in Kraków and made up almost 25% of the total population. Military authorities initiated immediate measures aimed at isolating, exploiting, and persecuting the Jews of the city. They required Jews to report for forced labor, form a Jewish Council, identify themselves by means of a white armband with a blue Star of David, and register their property. In early March 1941, the Germans ordered the establishment of a ghetto.

What's in the Records

Details vary widely by form, but details in this index may include the following:

• name
• birth date
• birth place
• marital status
• occupation
• origin city
• dates lived in Krakow
• address
• whether a photo appears in document

Ordering Records

Additional details about these victims may be included in the original records. While the index is freely accessible from Ancestry.com, the images of these records are not available in this database. Copies of the images can be ordered at no cost from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Click here for ordering information.

More information about Jews in Kraków during the Holocaust is available in the online Holocaust Encyclopedia.

Films of prewar Jewish life in Kazimierz, Krakow's Jewish quarter, and street scenes in Krakow are also available on the Museum’s website.

Click here to watch the video testimony of Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Pole who ran a pharmacy within the confines of the Krakow ghetto.