About this site and the old partisans database

About this site

This site is an independent history site in Hebrew, with a small English section. It covers the ghettos and their uprisings, the forest units, the people who fought, and how they are remembered. Each page is written in our own words from several published sources, and the sources are listed on the page.

This site is not linked to the Ghetto Fighters' House (Beit Lohamei Haghetaot). It is not the Ghetto Fighters' House site, its successor or its partner, and it does not use the name or the logos of the old site.

The old partisans database

According to its archived About page, the old site was called the "Web Site of the Partisans, Ghetto Fighters and Jewish Undergrounds in memory of Moshe Kalchheim". The same page described it as a project of the Ghetto Fighters' House, with the cooperation of the Organization of Partisans, Underground Fighters and Ghetto Rebels in Israel. Its page header linked to the Ghetto Fighters' House website.

The stated aim was to keep a registry of biographical information on as many partisans, ghetto fighters and members of Jewish undergrounds as possible, and to commemorate them. The About page says the basis for the site was set up in 1989, and that the information on each person came from questionnaires filled in by the partisans themselves, from the testimonies of friends, comrades and relatives, and from research, memoirs and archives. It called itself a work in progress and invited visitors to send new information.

The site was in Hebrew and English. Each person had a card, and visitors could search by name or use an advanced search with fields such as country and city of birth, country and area of combat, unit and underground organization.

What happened to it

The old database went offline. The domain was later registered again, independently, and the present site was built on it as a completely new site.

The texts, biographies and photos of the old cards belong to their owners, and we do not reproduce them here. Questions about the original material should go to the Ghetto Fighters' House.

Where to look for records now

If you came here from an old link to a card, these are the main places to search today:

• The Ghetto Fighters' House Archive: letters, personal documents, diaries, testimonies, films and photographs, with a database open to the public and an online archive.
• Yad Vashem, Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names: online since 2004, and since January 2021 it also includes names of Holocaust survivors.
• JewishGen, Jewish Partisans in Belarus, 1941-1944: 8,451 records compiled by Dr. Inna Gerasimova of the Museum of Jewish History and Culture of Belarus in Minsk.

Step-by-step advice is on our page Find a partisan record.