In the Memorial database you can find information about the rank of the deceased in World War II, the unit in which he served, the date and cause of death (killed, died of wounds, missing) and the place of burial.
Ministry of Defense Russian Federation created Generalized computer bank data containing information about the defenders of the Fatherland, who died and went missing during the years of the Great Patriotic War, as well as in the post-war period ( OBD Memorial).
The main goal of the project is to enable millions of citizens to determine the fate or find information about their dead or missing relatives and friends, to determine the place of their burial.
The Military Memorial Center of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out work that is unique in terms of scale, technology and deadlines, as a result of which an information and reference system of global importance was created.
The implementation of the technical part of the project - the creation and content of the OBD Memorial website (www.obd-memorial.ru) was entrusted to a specialized organization - the Electronic Archive corporation.
The data for filling the Generalized Databank are taken from official archival documents stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and in the Military Memorial Center of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The main array of documents is reports of combat units about irretrievable losses, other archival documents specifying losses (funerals, documents from hospitals and medical battalions, trophy cards of Soviet prisoners of war, etc.), as well as burial passports Soviet soldiers and officers.
On the site you can find information about the rank of the deceased, the unit in which he served, the date and cause of death (killed, died of wounds, missing) and the place of burial. Moreover, the site contains scanned copies of all processed primary source documents containing information about personalities. These documents make it possible to identify the dead with great accuracy, since they often contain additional information, in particular the names and addresses of relatives to whom funerals were sent.
As part of the project, scanned and made available on the Internet about 10 million sheets of archival documents and over 30 thousand passports of military graves . For the first time you will be able to get acquainted with real documents, independently conduct search and research.
To date, no country in the world has such a data bank. The implementation of such a project requires the construction of a multi-stage chain for the collection, verification, digitization of paper arrays, numbering in millions of sheets, loading data into a powerful search engine, providing global multi-user access to documents. At the same time, all the people involved in its creation feel a special responsibility for the fact that every mistake made in the work can radically change the fate of a particular warrior. All this makes even more valuable the fact that it is in modern Russia the combined actions of the state, public organizations and scientific and technical firms led to the creation of the Memorial OBD.
The OBD Memorial will be a monument to all the soldiers who died and went missing in the defense of our Motherland and its interests, in practice realizing the slogan "No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten."
Work on replenishment of the data bank continues.
Many people whose relatives were participants in the Great Patriotic War still do not know about the fate of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. To perpetuate the memory of all participants in the war and provide information about the place of their burial to relatives and friends, the Memorial website was launched in 2007.
This site was developed under the direction of the Ministry of Defense. Over the 10 years of the existence of the Memorial archive, there are about 17 million digital copies of documents on irretrievable losses, as well as about 20 million nominal records on the losses of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War. The primary burial sites of more than 5 million soldiers and officers have been made public.
If you need to find your relatives, then use the site www.obd-memorial.ru, which contains an archive of participants in the Great Patriotic War (WWII). Using the archive of the Ministry of Defense, you can search by the names of the participants in the Great Patriotic War.
By going to the Memorial website, you can start searching for a participant in the Great Patriotic War. To do this, on the main page of the site, use the "Set fate" tab. To start a search by last name, you need to enter the following information in the empty fields: last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, title. If you cannot complete one of the fields, then you can leave the field blank.
Set fates After filling in the fields and performing a search, the computer will give you the search results.
If nothing was found according to your request, then you can use the advanced search. During an advanced search, it is possible to set the following search parameters: full name, last name in Latin, date of birth, place of birth, date and place of conscription, last place of service, military rank, camp number, date of departure, country of burial, region of burial, place of burial, place of departure, hospital where he was reburied, place of captivity, date of death. It also provides the ability to specify lists in which to search first.
Advanced Search
If you still can't find anyone, don't despair. The archive of the Ministry of Defense of the participants of the Great Patriotic War is annually updated with new entries. Therefore, it is possible that in a year or two you will be able to establish the fate of your relative, who was a participant in the Great Patriotic War.
Archive of WWII participants
To search for information, you need to fill out a given template.
Letter case does not matter.
In each field, you can use the asterisk symbol, which means that any characters can follow from this place in the search text. For example, when setting an expression in the Surname field, a search will be performed for all surnames starting with - Ivanov, Ivanovsky, etc., when setting - all surnames containing a substring - not only Ivanov, but also Selivanovsky, etc.
We advise you to always use the asterisk symbol at the end of the searched text, this will increase the chance of finding posts with spelling variations.
In some lists, the names of the dead are typed in Latin.
In some lists, double full names are indicated (in brackets or with a hyphen). To search in such records, use the asterisk character at the beginning and end of the search text.
The search result is displayed as a list of 20 people per page, the number of found records will be indicated above the list, and the number of pages of the list below the list. You can go to the desired page by typing its number in the corresponding window. The list shows only a part of the information about a person, to view all the available information about him, you need to click on the -> icon.
To navigate in the window for viewing information about an individual, you can use the arrow keys, PageUp and PageDown (go to the page up and down, respectively), the key combination Ctrl + Home and Ctrl + End (go to the beginning and end of the document, respectively). To return to the list of found surnames, you need to click on the "Return to search results" button at the bottom of the window.
Search also in the Generalized Data Bank of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (OBD "Memorial") www.obd-memorial.ru
Databases migrated in 2017 to the new site. Added the ability to search by different fields of directories. Accelerated and added new search capabilities in the summary database.
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Search for information about the participants of the Great Patriotic War on the Internet.
The well-known Memorial base does not always provide information (as, for example, with my relatives). Look for other bases.
www.podvignaroda.ru - a publicly available electronic bank of documents on awardees and awards during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
www.obd-memorial.ru - a generalized data bank about the defenders of the Fatherland, the dead and missing during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period
www.pamyat-naroda.ru - a public data bank about the fate of the participants in the Great Patriotic War. Search for places of primary burials and documents about awards, about service, about victories and hardships on the battlefields
www.moypolk.ru - information about the participants of the Great Patriotic War, including home front workers - the living, the dead, the dead and the missing. Collected and replenished by participants of the all-Russian campaign "Immortal Regiment"
www.polk.ru - information about Soviet and Russian soldiers who went missing in the wars of the 20th century (including the pages "Great Patriotic War" and "Undelivered awards").
www.permgani.ru - database on the website of the Perm State Archive of Recent History, which includes the main biographical information on former servicemen of the Red Army (natives of the Perm Territory or called up for military service from the territory of the Kama region), who during the Great Patriotic War were surrounded and (or) captured by the enemy, and after returning to their homeland underwent a special state check (filtering).
http://rf-poisk.ru - electronic version of the book "Names from soldiers' medallions", volumes 1-6. They contain alphabetical information about those who died during the war years, whose remains, discovered during prospecting work, was identified.
http://soldat.ru - books of memory (for individual regions, military branches, individual units and formations, about those who died in captivity, those who died in Afghanistan, Chechnya).
http://soldat.ru - a set of directories for independent search for information about the fate of military personnel (including a directory of field postal stations of the Red Army in 1941-1945, a directory of conditional names of military units (institutions) in 1939 - 1943, a directory of the deployment of hospitals of the Red Army in 1941-1945)
www.rkka.ru - a directory of military abbreviations (as well as charters, instructions, directives, orders and personal documents of wartime).
www.rkka.ru - description of combat operations of World War II, post-war analysis of the events of World War II, military memoirs.
http://rgvarchive.ru - Russian State Military Archive (RGVA). The archive stores documents on the combat operations of the Red Army units in 1937-1939. near Lake Khasan, on the Khalkhin Gol River, in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. Here - documents of the border and internal troops of the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD-MVD of the USSR since 1918; documents of the Main Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR and institutions of its system (GUPVI of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR) for the period 1939-1960; personal documents of Soviet military leaders; documents of foreign origin (trophy). On the website of the archive you can also find guides and reference books that make it easier to work with it.
rgaspi.org - Russian State Archive of Socio-Political Information (RGASPI). The period of the Great Patriotic War in RGASPI is represented by the documents of the emergency body state power- The State Defense Committee (GKO, 1941-1945) and the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander.
rgavmf.ru - Russian State Archive of the Navy (RGAVMF). The archive stores documents of the Russian Navy (end of the 17th century - 1940). Naval documentation of the period of the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period is stored in the Central Naval Archive (TsVMA) in Gatchina, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
victory.rusarchives.ru - a list of federal and regional archives of Russia (with direct links and descriptions of collections of photographic and film documents from the period of the Great Patriotic War).
It should be noted that the search for the burial place or the military path of one's grandfather / great-grandfather is a long, sometimes difficult, sometimes expensive business. From the very beginning, you need to tune in to a long painstaking work of collecting information and analyzing it.
However, in general, it is a simple and straightforward process.
Specify the last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, place of birth, place of residence before the war, military registration and enlistment office, address of relatives, place of service, military rank, party membership, if there are letters - find the field mail number in them if we are looking for a dead or missing missing - specify the date of the last known letter.
Read the letters carefully, they may contain important information: about the type of troops, about the military unit, any details of movements.
Type of troops, military unit - regiment, division, army - this information is sometimes the key to finding, for example, burial
The base is unique, there are no analogues in the world. About 14 million sheets of archival documents were scanned and posted. Work on filling the database continues. Therefore, do not be surprised if there is no data for your relative yet.
Here you can find all possible (taking into account the fact that the database is filling up) references to a person: Books of memory, reports of losses, lists of the buried, etc.
The database contains almost all military graves where soldiers and commanders of the Red Army are buried. From Murmansk to Crete.
Additional information can be obtained on the website "Feat of the People". There is information about the awards.
If you know about the awards of a relative, then from the award documents you can find out information about the military unit, place of birth, etc. And, of course, about exploits.
In addition, the "Feat of the People" has a section on the Geography of War. In this section, you can find information about the combat path of the military unit.
If you want to know where your grandfather fought, who lived to see the end of the war, this is the main tool. But only if he was awarded.
Books of Memory
In every area Soviet Union, including in Ukraine, a multi-volume "Book of Memory" was published. The Book contains information about those who did not return from the war. But! Information at the time of the publication of the Book, and the information that the regional commissariat then had. Some of the books have been reprinted.
"Book of Memory" is kept in the district military commissariat. It is necessary to contact at the place of recruitment your relative..
There is an easier way to access the "Book of Memory" - contact the Veterans Council. There, active grandparents will give you the "Book" and give you more tea.
Memory books can also be electronic. Then a link to them must be sought on the websites of the central authorities of the region.
Most of the Memory Books have been digitized and are in the Memorial OBD. In the "Advanced Search" section, a search for these Books is available.
If the previous search did not give the desired results - send by registered mail request to the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense - 142100, Moscow region, Podolsk, st. Kirov, house 74.
The request looks like this:
======================================
142100, Podolsk, Moscow Region
Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
QUESTIONNAIRE-INQUIRY
on the search and establishment of the fate of a serviceman
1. Surname, name, patronymic (wanted)
________________________
________________________
________________________
2. Year and place of birth (region, district, village, city) _______________________________
3. Where he lived and worked before the call (indicate the detailed address and name of the institution, enterprise) _________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
4. By what military registration and enlistment office was called, when and to which part he was sent _____________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
5. Military rank ______________________________
6. Type of troops (by conscription and service) _________________________________________________
7. Party membership _________________________________
8. When written communication ceased (year, month, day) _____________________________
9. Address of the military unit at the last place of service (last letter) ___________
10. Who requests (last name, first name, patronymic, family relationship, home address)
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Applicant's signature - _________________
Reception led by __________________________
“______”_________20___
Request in the form of a word file.=============================================================
After some time, you receive an official certificate of the place of burial.
It will say:
1. Killed (indicating the place of burial)
2. Killed (without specifying the place of burial)
3. Died from wounds (indicating the place of burial)
4. Died of wounds (without specifying the place of burial)
5. Missing.
If you know the place of burial, then take one more step:
After receiving an official certificate, write a request to the district military registration and enlistment office of the place of burial (depending on the accuracy of the indication).
Head of the military registration and enlistment office of the Demyansky district of the Novgorod region
We ask you to establish the place of burial _______FULL NAME______, check it according to the passports of burials based on the information we have from
1) Notice of death ____________
2) OBD Memorial (listing of documents) _____________
Copies of documents attached _____________
If there is no data on the full name in the burial passport, please enter the full name in the burial passport and perpetuate his name
Copies do not need to be certified, ordinary copies are sufficient.
If a specific burial is indicated in the certificate, then you are looking for it using the OBD "Memorial" - Advanced search, Search for burials
If the place of burial is unknown, then we do the following:
Died from wounds
Request to the archive of military medical documents of the Military Medical Museum of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (191180, St. Petersburg, Lazaretny per. 2) and a second request to TsAMO with a request to clarify the location of the hospital for the period of death of the wanted person.
Very often, the passport of military burials (if it is hospital) contains information about the hospital.
If there is any information about the hospital, then - a guide to the deployment of hospitals of the Red Army in 1941-1945.
Killed or missing.
This is where the fun begins. You should be aware of the part in which your grandfather fought. This will be in the certificate from TsAMO or in the unified database "Memorial". Your task is to establish the combat path of the division\brigade\regiment. Not armies, but divisions / brigades / regiments.
If there are letters and they contain a field mail number, then we decrypt this number.
If a part is known, then further - memoirs, maps, reports on hostilities, and so on. You can search TsAMO for reports and orders for a narrow period of time. It is quite realistic, for example, to establish the fate of an individual tank, and from aerial photographs to suggest the place of his death, and after a survey of the local population, to establish a previously unknown grave. But this is jewelry work, and most likely the local search squad can do it.
Sometimes, the military registration and enlistment office cannot give a complete picture, especially for the battles of 1941-1942. The maximum that they can give in this case is a map of the area's burials. But there could be dozens of them.
Keep in mind that the burials have been enlarged. Consolidation campaigns were held in the country 2-3 times. They are still being carried out now, the main reason is the transport inaccessibility and the impossibility of leaving.
The history of burials can also be traced by the OBD "Memorial". Sometimes, lists of graves are posted on official websites.
It may be that the burial was transferred only on paper. And where it really is - everyone forgot.
The mass grave, created in 1941 and noted in the documents, can simply "dissolve" on the ground during 2 years of occupation. Or it may be that the person you are looking for will be listed in several graves.
Museums.
School and local history. No matter how strange it may seem to someone, but school museums exist and are actively working on specific units and units. Most full list school military history museums is located.
Search squads
It is necessary to contact the search team of your district / city, as well as the search team of the area where your relative died / went missing.
On request in Yandex like "Demyansky search squad" usually everything is also found.
If there is no information on the Internet, call the Department of Youth Affairs of the desired region and you will be given all the information available on the search teams in the region.
