Search the archive of the call for war 1941. Databases for searching information about WWII participants on the Internet. Is it possible to search by awards?

Today's development modern technologies has taken a step forward and you can find any information. Every resident of Russia can use the official website to learn about the participants of the Second World War, the period 1941-1945. Therefore, answering the question of how to find WWII participants by last name is not so difficult; this will be described below.

WWII participant, find by last name - official website

Today, special resources have been created, thanks to which you can find missing soldiers and war veterans who are still alive. It's worth noting that these are useful resources that many people use. Today, several sites have been created, but reliable information should be taken from the official one. https://www.obd-memorial.ru. It’s easy to work with; you just need to fill out the fields that are presented on the start page. On them you can get acquainted with extracts and documents that were relevant about seventy years ago.

To find a specific person, you should set up filters. The information that is needed is the full name, if there are other data, then thanks to them you can find the desired person faster. You can indicate years of service, military awards, orders and relatives of the veteran. If you were unable to identify the necessary information, then this is not a reason for frustration. You can try your own after a while. Data on the sites is updated regularly. You can try to find a person using search sites like Yandex.

It is worth noting that the data on the site is filled out by volunteers who conduct excavations at war sites. Everything that they find in the margins relating to the war, the period 1941-1945, is published on this portal. The sites can be replenished by people and social services that work with the elderly. Often war veterans share facts from their lives with their interlocutors. And war is such a period of life that sinks into the soul of an old man for a long time.

Find awards of a WWII participant by last name

Several years ago, a resource appeared on the Internet, thanks to which you can find awards received by participants in the war. This resource stores documents in electronic format that confirm the awards of people who took part in the war. All data is publicly available and anyone can view it. There is information taken from the archives.

The purpose of creating this project is to preserve the memory of each of the heroes of the Victory. There are only facts and no false information. It was recently determined that the resource contains more than twelve million award information. To find out if your relative has been awarded, you need to enter his initials in the Award Search column. If no information is found, you can subscribe to updates that will be sent to you by email.

Find a relative of a WWII participant by last name

To date, no such resource has yet been invented where one could find out about the relatives of war participants. But over time it is planned to create it too. Although on the official website, where you can find participants in the war, information about his relatives may also appear, if it was known earlier. Also on this site you can independently indicate your relationship with a war veteran. Only this needs to be supported by some documents, you need to prove your relationship with the veteran.

But if there is such a need to find relatives of war veterans, then you can contact the military registration and enlistment office and raise the entire archive of documents that should contain the information you are interested in.

How to find WWII participants

The question of how to find a WWII participant by last name is not uncommon today. But the answer to it will be formulated below. Lately, people have been interested in the participants in the war, prompted by the seventieth anniversary of victory, which does not leave a single veteran unattended. There is a good database of WWII participants on the database "Memorial" Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, which is freely available, that is, anyone can use it. You can fill out a questionnaire about a WWII participant if he is your relative, but the knowledge must be reliable.

To find a participant in the Great War, you can contact the military registration and enlistment office that called the person to serve. You will need to write a statement stating that you are a relative and want to find out about the fate of the person or talk about him. After some time, your proposal will be considered and you will be contacted.

If you were unable to search for your relative, you can contact the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense, which is located in the city of Podolsk. You don’t have to go there in person; you can write a letter so that they can tell you about your missing relative. After some time, you should receive an official response, which will indicate either the place of burial or the place of residence of the person.

If a war participant died from combat wounds or died in captivity, then in order to find out as many facts about him as possible, you need to write a letter to the FSB, who can search the archives for information about the person.

How to find war participants using a television program?

Many people are looking for people who went missing on the battlefields to find out whether they are alive or not. And there are a lot of ways to do this. You can use specially created search sites, broadcasts, some associations and groups on social networks, archives and other places. Every year there are fewer and fewer unmarked graves or veterans who were unable to find their relatives. Therefore, the state is doing everything so that the participants of the Second World War find their relatives, and the whole country is proud of them.

Programs that search for missing people Lately have gained wide popularity, especially when we are talking about program "Wait for me" where War Veterans are often found. After all, many veterans watch this program in the hope of finding their relatives and colleagues. This television project searches for missing people not only in Russia, but also in other countries, which increases the chances of finding the missing person. You can write a letter to the studio if you cannot come in person. You must include a description of the person and a photograph, if available, with your description.

In this article, we looked at how to find WWII participants by last name, what methods and sites there are for this. But in reality this will not be so easy. You may have to use several methods at once to find out about your missing relative.

Video about search methods

The Great Patriotic War took, according to various estimates, from several million to tens of millions of lives. A huge percentage of WWII participants are considered missing. With the help of the Internet, it has become possible to trace the combat path of soldiers in order to find them and immortalize their exploits.

In Great Patriotic War The entire Soviet people participated - from an ordinary working person to the famous artist Yuri Nikulin - the participants of the Second World War, whoever they were, brought the great Victory of the USSR over Germany and its allies.

Of the tens of millions of WWII participants, less than half returned alive.

The Great Patriotic War took a large number of lives - the Soviet people suffered the greatest losses, because it was they who bore the brunt of the German military machine. And although foreign sources deny this, it is precisely Soviet Union made a key contribution to the victory over Nazism and fascism. The death toll still cannot be calculated accurately.

Many families want to find out whether their loved one is on the list of WWII participants and what fate befell him during the fighting.

Nowadays, searching for WWII participants is still a difficult task. Despite the fact that the World Wide Web has made it possible to work with databases much faster, many documents remain lost. It is worth noting that there are many such resources (sites for searching for the dead, missing and veterans) and they are all in the public domain - anyone can visit the electronic database and try to find their loved one.

Since many of the WWII participants are considered missing, their bodies are still being found. Monuments to WWII participants are erected at the expense of the state - the organization of funerals also falls on the shoulders of special authorities Russian Federation and other CIS countries.

Search dead participants The Second World War began on a large scale relatively recently - in the early 2000s. Historians began to actively close the dark pages of history, and there was a desire to perpetuate the memory of the participants Great War. The Internet played perhaps a key role in this. It made it possible to create electronic databases that are much easier to work with than archives.

At the same time, organizations such as “ Immortal Regiment", many sites have opened that are easy to work with - you just need to know the basic information about the WWII participant. Knowing the name of a WWII participant, a person has a high probability of finding the dead or missing.

Losses in the Great Patriotic War

According to various sources, USSR losses range from 7 to more than 40 million people. At the same time, the number of missing people remains extremely high even this year.

The figure of 7 million is cited by domestic historians, while foreign historians believe that the real losses are hushed up and the death toll is much more catastrophic - about 40 million people, including civilians.

The official death toll in the war was constantly changing. For example, Stalin called 7 million people, while under Khrushchev a much more catastrophic figure was called - 20 million.

Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, estimates of 7 and 20 million victims were constantly criticized. According to documents, in the first year of the war alone, when the Red Army suffered one defeat after another and fell into cauldrons, losses amounted to more than 3 million - and that’s just the military. Another example - Battle of Stalingrad. About 1.2 million military personnel died in it alone—these are those who were found. There were also bloody battles near Moscow, Leningrad, the Battle of Kursk, the storming of Berlin, and so on. Many are still considered missing.

It is also difficult to calculate losses due to the fact that many WWII participants died in German captivity. Terrible conditions, constant executions, hard work and meager rations led to the fact that only a small percentage of prisoners managed to return to their homeland. The Germans have been burning documentation relating to atrocities in concentration camps in recent months in an attempt to hide information from the world, and therefore this data is considered irretrievably lost.

It is still impossible to accurately determine the number of victims, since historians do not have access to all the documentation. During the fighting, recruitment into the army was so chaotic that mistakes were often made in the names and surnames of recruits, which seriously complicates the work with documents. Some of the papers were lost or destroyed during the fighting and retreat of the Red Army forces in the first years of the war.

Documents from the second period of the Great Patriotic War have been preserved in a larger percentage. The largest part of the missing are soldiers of the Red Army who tried to hold back the enemy's advance in the first years of the war. The years 1941-1942 were extremely difficult for the Soviet republics (USSR) and searching for the names of WWII participants in this period is the most difficult. Young men and old men were called up to the military registration and enlistment offices - many simply did not have time to enroll and were immediately sent to the front, since the enemy was inexorably advancing and there was a catastrophic shortage of people.

A huge number of bodies have yet to be found, and families want to find their relatives so they can be given a proper burial.

To do this, you can use a site like "Memory of the People" is a powerful online resource that searches for WWII participants by last name.

Home page of the website “Memory of the People”

On the People's Memory website you can search for awarded people by last name and first name - a huge database that has been collected over the years will help with this. On the site you can also search for WWII participants who returned from the war in order to be sure what the person experienced fighting.

In addition, this resource also helps to find out the burial places of soldiers, obtain information about losses in a particular battle, and find information about the service of a Red Army soldier. The situation is more complicated with the rear workers, who also played a big role in the victory over Germany - there are much fewer similar resources for finding them, as well as documents with the data of these people.

There are many queries on the Internet: “I’m looking for a WWII participant,” “where can I find a veteran by last name?” In this article you will learn about all the ways to find missing relatives.

How to find a participant in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 by last name

Such popular sites as:

• http://www.obd-memorial.ru – allows you to find useful information about combatants who died or went missing;
• http://www.moypolk.ru - allows you to find information not only about soldiers, but also who worked in the rear, children of the war, and were in the ranks of the partisans;
• http://www.podvignaroda.ru - opens access to lists of decorated combatants;
• http://www.pamyat-naroda.ru is one of the largest Internet resources, which is supported by the Ministry of Defense and provides access to all found documents from the period of the Great Patriotic War;
• http://www.dokst.ru – a list of prisoners of war who died while being captured by the Germans and many others (alas, all the names of those killed are not in the database).

On the above-mentioned resources, you just need to enter the name of interest, and the search engine will give you all the relevant results.

A valuable source in the search for dead WWII participants are funeral- This is a document that is a notification of the death of a serviceman. These documents can also be found on the above-mentioned sites.

If you have information about awards, this will greatly simplify your search, as you can access lists of awardees and try to find the name you need there.

Thorough Analysis official sources in state archives will allow you to find grandfathers and great-grandfathers who participated in the Second World War, although this procedure takes a lot of time.

Archive of the Ministry of Defense: search by last name of WWII participants

The military registration and enlistment office is the place where a WWII participant could be noted for the last time, and therefore their archives are also important - they should contain valuable information, including dates of birth, registration, surname, place of military service.

The archives of the military unit and naval academy are no less important sources. The archives of such institutions may also contain valuable information about WWII participants.

The central archive of your city is a must-visit for those who want to find their missing relative who participated in the Second World War of 1941-1945. Anyone can visit it, because now all the archives of the USSR are in the public domain.

WWII awards: search by last name

A website was created specifically for searching by last name in archives awarded during and as a result of hostilities "Feat of the People". It is not difficult to find out about awards given to WWII participants, because all lists are publicly available.

Home page of the website “Feat of the People”

“Feat of the People” is a huge data repository where all combatants who distinguished themselves in battle with the enemy are collected. Consequently, if your relative who took part in hostilities received some kind of award, he was entered into the “Feat of the People” database.

In the catalog of orders and medals you can find veterans, dead and disabled people who were awarded the “Red Star”, a list of participants in the battle (battle) for Moscow, and so on.

Unfortunately, there is no 100% guarantee that you will find your loved one, since too many documents were lost during the war and for a long time no one was searching for the missing.

If you cannot find information on websites, you need to visit the archives of the regions where the person you are looking for was born. For example, if he was born in the Republic of Bashkortostan, then you need to visit the local archives, which contain a list of WWII participants born in this region.

The situation is somewhat more complicated with those killed abroad. For example, if a WWII participant died in Belarus (Belarus), you need to go to the embassy so that they can open access to archives in that country.

The “Feat of the People” website is supported by the Ministry of Defense. Their goal is to perpetuate the memory of all the heroes of the great war, regardless of what rank they were in and what scale of feat they performed. An equally important goal is the patriotic education of young people against the backdrop of the exploits of their grandfathers.

The main source of information is archival documents that are digitized and entered into the database.

Speaking in numbers, on the “Feat of the People” website there is:

• more than thirty million records of awards of orders and medals “For Military Merit” and “For Courage”;
• more than twenty million records of awards of the Order of the Great Patriotic War, I and II degrees, which were awarded on the fortieth anniversary of the Victory;
• one hundred million sheets, which in total amount to more than two hundred thousand archival files.

There are three search options available on the “Feat of the People” website, including:

• search for decrees and orders on awards;
• searching for people and their rewards;
• search for data by place and time.

On the website “Feat of the People” you can see lists of people and their awards, study real award lists of WWII participants, which are a valuable source of information. The award documents are publicly available and there should be no problems working with them - the main thing is to be patient.

On the “Feat of the People” website you can also find an anniversary card index of awards for WWII participants - it contains all the names and surnames of the soldiers who received anniversary awards on the 40th anniversary of the Great Victory. It describes extensive information about the participants of the Second World War, including their dates and places of birth, and other valuable data.

Also here you can see the movements of armies and military units, which makes it possible to trace the combat path of a WWII participant.

The “Feat of the People” website, unfortunately, has one drawback - it will be useless for those who are looking for information about combatants who went missing, but for this there are other Internet resources, which were also discussed in the article.

WWII veterans: search by last name

Missing people, veterans, dead and heroes of the Great Patriotic War can be found using regional, regional and city directories.

Significant assistance in searching for living veterans, those who have already died, or those killed as a result of hostilities is provided by the popular Internet site http://moypolk.ru/, which is supported by the all-Russian campaign “Immortal Regiment”, the work of which has only recently gained momentum.

Do not forget to visit the archives of those cities in which the veteran was first born or where he served. For example, if he was born in the Tsivilsky district, look at the lists of participants in the local regional archives.

Immortal Regiment of Russia

“Immortal Regiment” – large-scale social movement, the purpose of which is to preserve personal information about participants, witnesses of the Great Patriotic War, home front workers, workers in factories producing military equipment and ammunition, and so on.

The “Immortal Regiment” was created in Russia - in the city of Tomsk, by three activists: Igor Dmitriev, Sergei Kolotovkin and Sergei Lapenkov.

Initially, the scale of the movement was small, but now it operates in eighty countries around the world.

All the initiators of the movement are journalists who came up with the idea of ​​​​creating the “Immortal Regiment” after they began to notice every year that fewer and fewer veterans were coming to the parade dedicated to Victory Day.

During the first march (occurred in 2012) in Tomsk, more than five thousand people took to the streets of the city, carrying posters with photos of their relatives who fought in the Great Patriotic War.

The first procession of the “Immortal Regiment” in 2012 in the city of Tomsk

This action was immediately covered in the media and began to rapidly gain momentum throughout the country and beyond.

The main logo of the movement was the crane bird. The creators of the logo were primarily inspired by the song “Cranes,” which is dedicated to soldiers who died during the fighting.

The Immortal Regiment logo is a crane.

On the official website of the “Immortal Regiment” http://moypolk.ru/, anyone can independently determine the fate of their loved ones who died during the fighting in the Great Patriotic War or went missing. Every month, thanks to the site, people manage to find dozens of dead heroes who brought us victory over Nazism.

Database of those killed in the Second World War

One of the largest databases on the Internet of those killed during combat operations, in post-war period, as well as information about missing persons can be found on the website https://obd-memorial.ru/html/

OBD "Memorial" offers an advanced search for WWII participants by last name. In it, you initially need to enter the last name, then the first name or initials of the soldier.

Archival data of participants in the Second World War 1941-1945 is in the public domain, and therefore you can be sure that if information about the person you are interested in exists, you will definitely find it on this site.

Victory in the Great War over the Germans and their allies came at a high price - millions died, hundreds of thousands simply disappeared, but their memory should not be forgotten.

Activists continue to search for burial places of soldiers. The President of the Russian Federation fully supports the work of such organizations like the Immortal Regiment, having issued special Decrees and instructions.

With the help of the Memorial website, millions of people can find the burial places of their loved ones who died at the hands of the enemy. A large-scale campaign was carried out to create this resource. As a result, we have gained access to an information and reference system of truly global importance, which simply has no analogues in world practice.

Winners: Soldiers of the Great War

A project was created for the 60th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War "Winners", which aims to once again recall and perpetuate the feat of the Great War.

Every year the number of veterans decreases - these people leave. Many even began to forget the last time they saw a veteran of the Great Patriotic War.

On the 60th anniversary of the victory over the Germans, the organizers of the “Winners” project were able to create a list of more than one million veterans who still live with us and should never be forgotten.

Participants in the “Winners” movement believe that no matter how assessments change and how history is interpreted, the feat of our grandfathers and grandmothers should never be forgotten. And the day of May 9 should remain the Day of the Great Victory over the Nazis.

The names of those who fought in the Second World War should always remain in the memory of all generations to whom the participants in the hostilities gave a peaceful life.

Great assistance in collecting the names of veterans was provided, first of all, by the presidential administration, which helped find more than one million heroes. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation also provided lists of WWII veterans who retired - there were more than one hundred thousand winners on the lists.

In the very first days, the creators of the site began to receive letters in which relatives of combatants wrote that they had found their loved one on the site, who was considered dead.
Regardless of where your loved one served during the Second World War - in the NKVD troops or as an ordinary ordinary soldier in the Red Army, if he is on the list of veterans we have collected, you will be able to find him.

It would seem difficult not to find a loved one for sixty years. However, at that time there was a catastrophe in the country on a global scale and many were unable to get to their home, especially if it was completely destroyed by the Germans.

At the moment, the site is functioning to the best of its capabilities - the creators of the project, unfortunately, do not have the current addresses of veterans of the Great Patriotic War.

The creators of the site believe that the Internet provides new opportunities to tell the younger generation what this Great War was like for our grandfathers and grandmothers, who shed blood for their Motherland and loved ones.
The “Winners” website has a special multimedia map of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, which will allow you to learn in detail about the course of hostilities, the movements of armies, and so on.
The managers of the site considered it necessary not to delete the names of already deceased veterans - they celebrated the 60th anniversary of the victory and always remain alive. Therefore, on the site you will not see the dates of death of veterans.

Find a soldier - a reminder for those who are looking for their heroes

The Immortal Regiment organization decided to provide assistance to those people who are just trying for the first time to find their loved ones who fought in the Great Patriotic War.

Domestic archives, as well as foreign ones, the official website of the Ministry of Defense, special Internet resources - they are your best assistant in finding war participants.

In a special memo "Find a Soldier" they talked about ways to find veterans that are currently relevant and will help you find your loved one.

The search procedure is as follows:

1. Visit the Memorial website at the following address: http://obd-memorial.ru. To try to find a person, you need to open the “advanced search” tab. Initially, it is advised to enter only the person’s last name, then you can add the first name and other data. In addition, try to write the last name in full, and write the first and middle names with initials.
2. Travel to the Russian State Archives.
3. Contact the Russian Ministry of Defense for help by sending a request to provide information about a participant in hostilities. To do this, you need to fill out a letter and send it to the following address: “Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation,” Kirova Street 74, Podolsk, Moscow Region, 142100. You must state your request in as much detail as possible in the letter, provide all available information and enclose it in the letter a blank envelope with your home address.
4. Look for information about your loved one on the Feat of the People website. At the following address: http://podvignaroda.mil.ru, you can see if the person you are looking for is on the list of awarded veterans. If you only know your first and last name, then you should go to the “People and Awards” tab - the search engine will give you all the relevant results.
5. This point will help you if you are absolutely sure that your relative who participated in the hostilities is buried outside. There are several ways to find a relative: contact the embassy of the Russian Federation in a particular country, or find help in the Russian House of EU member states.
6. The popular Russian website “Soldat.ru” talks about many other ways in which you can find your relative: send a questionnaire to the International Red Cross tracing service, make socio-legal inquiries to the archives, visit a database of Internet links to school museums in Russian Federation, in which there may be exhibitions about the combat routes of formations and units Soviet army.

If such search options have not brought you success, visit the website http://soldat.ru - there you will find a lot more tools for work and, perhaps, one of them will help you find the person you have been looking for for decades.

Website "Soldier"

If you know the initials, full name, surname or at least patronymic - finding the burial place of a WWII participant is much easier.

Book of Memory

"Book of Memory"- another online project that was created specifically to perpetuate the memory of the exploits of Red Army soldiers, home front workers and partisans who fought in the Great Patriotic War.

In addition, the “Book of Memory” project provides significant assistance to search teams, allowing them to consult printed volumes regarding the information they contain about KA (Red Army) soldiers.

The “Book of Memory” project is global in nature - many countries have their own books, for example, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. In addition, individual areas also create “Books of Memory” - such things are also done educational establishments, like schools, and it doesn’t matter where they are - in a village or a city.

Now the “Book of Memory” project is fully supported by the “Immortal Regiment”. At the moment, the project is actively developing - the society actively supports search work and favors the creation of printed publications with stories of eyewitnesses, victims and veterans of the Great Patriotic War.

“Book of Memory” of the Kaliningrad region

The electronic memory book is constantly updated with new stories and names, revealing to the younger generation more and more details of life during the Great War with the Germans and their allies.

The electronic version of the “Book of Memory” of Russia can be found at http://narkompoisk.ru

Immortal Regiment

As already mentioned, officially "Immortal Regiment" was created on the territory of the Russian Federation in city ​​of Tomsk. And although the movement was initiated in 2011, it has officially existed since 2014.

Before the “Immortal Regiment,” other movements arose, but none of them received such significant support from society wishing to perpetuate the memory of the participants in the Great Patriotic War.

In 2012 there are already fifteen large cities in Russia decided to organize a procession of people on Victory Day with posters of photos of participants in the hostilities.

In 2013 Russia has already been joined by countries such as Ukraine, Israel and Kazakhstan. These states also suffered greatly during the fighting of 1941-1945, as well as from repression by Nazi Germany.

In 2014 the number of cities supporting the Immortal Regiment movement has increased up to five hundred, and the number of countries is now seven. Due to the growing popularity of the movement, its organizers created their own website - on it, every relative of a combatant can try to find a deceased, missing person or veteran.

In 2015 The Immortal Regiment has already passed in seventeen countries around the world and covered more than a thousand cities.
In 2016 there was an incredible surge in the popularity of the “Immortal Regiment” - people joined the action forty-two countries.

On the official website of the “Immortal Regiment”, as of 2016, more than 350 thousand stories were published. It is interesting that not only the stories of combatants are published here, but also those who spent the war in German captivity and provided the work of the rear. A special place is given to the stories of children of the war, for whom it was no less difficult than for adults.

“Immortal Regiment” calls on everyone to help promote the organization, because it pursues noble goals - to help find relatives who died during the fighting, living veterans and perpetuate the exploits of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

In 2015, when the country celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Victory, The President of the Russian Federation took part in the procession of the “Immortal Regiment” - Vladimir Putin, which provides significant support to the movement.

It is currently impossible to establish all the names of the participants in the Second World War of 1941-1945, but the help of the “Immortal Regiment” from everyone who cares will help us get closer to this number.

Thanks to the above-mentioned resources, grandfathers and grandmothers were found who were participants in the Second World War and who had long been considered dead. Tens of thousands of families were able to find the bodies of dead and missing relatives in order to bury them with dignity and perpetuate their memory.

Everyone who fought in the Second World War should be known, everyone should know their names.

You tell me: “Why look?

Those who were killed here have long disappeared,

Those who could have been waiting for them have also left,

And all of them have long been forgotten..."

From the song of the search engines

Almost every family in our country has relatives who went missing during the Great Patriotic War. Some scattered information is kept in the family, some still have photographs. But when you see the name loved one in the report from the Memorial base, for example, for some reason you more clearly imagine a train under fire, trenches... And it seems that if you find out at least something else, your soldier will not be so lonely in his unknown grave. And you hope that the soldiers who have not returned will not be left without prayers.

Dmitry Aleksandrovich Belov, candidate of historical sciences, Director of the Research Center for Regional History of Volgograd State Academy postgraduate education, vice-president of the International Charitable Foundation "Battle of Stalingrad".

STEP 1. WHERE TO START

Most quick way find your relative who died in the Great Patriotic War - this is a generalized Memorial data bank, the database of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO):

For this:

1. We go to the website of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, where the most complete electronic database in our country of those killed in the Second World War is located: www.obd-memorial.ru

2. Fill in the columns “Last name”, “First name”, “Patronymic”, “Year of birth” of your deceased relative:

3. Ideally, we get a result of several lines with more or less complete information and continue to study the materials towards specification exact location burials.

4. In the surname or first name, or patronymic, we change the letters, selecting them in such a way as if they were written by an illiterate person or the original document is poorly readable and there are alternative reading options. And you may come across additional documents from the archive's database.

At this stage of the search, to begin with, a last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, preferably a title is enough. If he is Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, then, of course, it will be more difficult. You have to be persistent to make sure that this is exactly the person you need, you will need details - full name of wife, mother, name of the village, city where he was called up, place of birth (in accordance with the administrative-territorial division of the USSR in the pre-war years - approx. ed.).

It is worth paying special attention to the fourth point. There are some really stupid spelling mistakes in the database. My great-grandfather's name was Andrei Kirillovich. I wrote “Kirillovich” like a normal person with two letters, and then I thought that not everyone knows how to spell Kirillovich...

Kirillovich typed with one “l” and immediately found the burial place. Also Filippovich - maybe Filippovich, and with one “p”, and so on. It is also better to try to change the letters in the surname and first name in case they were written by an illiterate person or the original document is difficult to read. Such moments must be taken into account.

Ideally, the result of your search should be a document about the burial place of a relative and information in which military unit (army, division or regiment) he fought.

If there is no information, one can hope that the search teams that are looking for and burying the remains of soldiers will find something. If the search engines managed to find someone, they contact the military registration and enlistment office and look for relatives themselves.

But you can continue the search on your own. In this case, it is necessary to collect the maximum possible amount of information in order to begin a qualitatively new stage of the search.

What can help us with this?

STEP 2. COLLECT ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Have the letters survived?

The most important thing in letters is the number of the field postal station (FPS) on the stamp of the envelope. You can use it to determine the number of a division, regiment, etc.

A powerful resource: a lot of documents on military topics, memoirs, collections. If the division number and the fighting area are known, then you can at least find a description in general terms.

Database "Feat of the People"

TsAMO project.

This is a database where there is information about soldiers awarded medals. The database is not complete yet, not all documents have been scanned yet.

This resource has several hospital databases. Dial the hospital number, press Enter and see which division it served.

And there are many more reference books on types of troops, shoulder straps, and weapons.

But the most valuable thing is on Soldat.ru forum http://soldat.ru/forum/

If you register on it, you can get advice from completely unfamiliar historians, specialists, anyone who is interested in searching, and military registration and enlistment office employees.

To register, at the top of this site (see the lower right corner in the picture above), you need to click the “Registration” button. Next you need to fill out the registration form.

Then create a topic (it’s better to name it briefly, for example, “No. rifle division. I'm looking for a relative." After this, your request will be able to be read by anyone who visits this site. Do not doubt! There will be enough such strangers and caring people. Everyone will help you with the information they have. Some will answer, advise, consult, others will recommend sites, scan the documents you need, excerpts from books, etc.

Other resources

There are many more resources that publish interviews with veterans and biographies. But it is worth considering that these sources, as a rule, do not represent historical value either for the researcher or for those who want to use this material in their search.

“Missing in action” - many people received notices with this phrase during the war years. There were millions of them, and the fate of these defenders of the Motherland remained unknown for a long time. In most cases, it remains unknown today, but there is still some progress in clarifying the circumstances of the disappearance of the soldiers. Several circumstances contribute to this. Firstly, new technological capabilities have emerged for search automation necessary documents. Secondly, search teams carry out useful and necessary work. Thirdly, the archives of the Ministry of Defense have become more accessible. But even today, in the vast majority of cases, ordinary citizens do not know where to look for those missing in action during the Second World War. This article may help someone find out the fate of their loved ones.

Search difficulties

In addition to factors that contribute to success, there are also those that make it difficult to find those missing in action during the Second World War. Too much time has passed, and there is less and less material evidence of events. There are also no more people who can confirm this or that fact. In addition, missing persons were considered suspicious during and after the war. It was believed that a soldier or officer could be captured, which in those years was considered almost a betrayal. A Red Army soldier could go over to the enemy’s side, and this happened, unfortunately, often. The fate of traitors is mostly known. Collaborators who were caught and identified were tried and either executed or given long sentences. Others found refuge in distant lands. Those of them who have survived to this day usually do not want to be found.

Where to look for missing prisoners of war during WWII

The fates of many Soviet prisoners of war after the war developed differently. Some were pardoned by the Stalinist punitive machine, and they returned home safely, although for the rest of their lives they did not feel like full-fledged veterans and they themselves felt some guilt before the “normal” participants in the hostilities. Others were destined for a long journey through places of detention, camps and prisons, where they most often ended up on unsubstantiated charges. A number of soldiers released from captivity ended up in the American, French or British occupation zones. These, as a rule, were handed over by the allies to the Soviet troops, but there were exceptions. For the most part, our soldiers wanted to go home to their families, but rare realists understood what awaited them and asked for asylum. Not all of them were traitors - many simply did not want to cut down forest in the Far North or dig canals. In some cases, they find themselves, contact relatives and even assign them foreign inheritances. However, in this case, the search for those missing in action during the Second World War 1941-1945 can be difficult, especially if such a former prisoner changed his last name and does not want to remember his homeland. Well, people are different, as are their destinies, and it’s hard to condemn those who ate bitter bread in a foreign land.

Documentary trail

However, in the vast majority of cases, the situation was much simpler and more tragic. In the initial period of the war, soldiers simply died in unknown cauldrons, sometimes together with their commanders, and there was no one to write reports on irreparable losses. Sometimes there were no bodies left, or it was impossible to identify the remains. It would seem, where to look for those missing in action during the Second World War with such confusion?

But there is always one thread left, by pulling which you can somehow unravel the history of the person of interest. The fact is that any person, and especially a military man, leaves behind a “paper” trail. His whole life is accompanied by documentary circulation: clothing and food certificates are issued for a soldier or officer, he is included in the In case of injury in a hospital, a medical record is opened for a soldier. Here is the answer to the question of where to look for missing people. The Second World War ended long ago, but the documents are kept. Where? In the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense, in Podolsk.

Central Archive of the Moscow Region

The application procedure itself is simple, and it is also free. The archives of the Ministry of Defense do not require money for the search for those missing in the Second World War of 1941-1945, and bear the costs of sending the answer. In order to make a request, you need to collect as much personal information as possible about who you want to find. The more there is, the easier it will be for Central Asian workers to decide where to look for those missing in action during the Great Patriotic War, in which storage and on which shelf the treasured document may lie.

First of all, you need your last name, first name and patronymic, place and date of birth, information about where you were called from, where you were sent and when. If any documentary evidence, notices or even personal letters have been preserved, then, if possible, they should be included (copies). Information about government awards, incentives, injuries and any other information related to service in the Armed Forces of the USSR will also not be superfluous. If you know in which the missing person served, his unit number and rank, then this should also be reported. In general, everything that is possible, but only reliable. All that remains is to put it all on paper, send it by letter to the Archive’s address and wait for a response. It won't be soon, but it will definitely happen. The people who work in the Central Election Commission of Moscow Region are obligatory and responsible.

Foreign archives

In the Second World War of 1941-1945, if the answer is negative from Podolsk, you should continue abroad. The hard times took Soviet soldiers languishing in captivity wherever they went. Their traces are found in Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Austria, Holland, Norway and, of course, Germany. The Germans kept documentation pedantically; a card was issued for each prisoner, equipped with a photograph and personal data, and if the documents were not damaged during hostilities or bombings, the answer would be found. The information concerns not only prisoners of war, but also those who were involved in forced labor. The search for missing persons in the Second World War sometimes makes it possible to find out about the heroic behavior of a relative in a concentration camp, and if not, then at least clarity will be brought into his fate.

The answer is usually laconic. Archives report on the settlement in the area of ​​which a soldier of the Red or Soviet Army took his last battle. Information about the place of pre-war residence, the date from which the soldier was removed from all types of allowance, and the place of his burial are confirmed. This is due to the fact that searching for missing persons in the Great Patriotic War by last name, and even by first name and patronymic, can lead to ambiguous results. Additional confirmation can be provided by the data of relatives to whom the notification should have been sent. If the burial place is indicated as unknown, then it is usually a mass grave located near the specified settlement. It is important to remember that reports on casualties were often compiled at the battlefields, and they were written in not very legible handwriting. Searching for missing persons in WWII 1941-1945 can be difficult due to the fact that the letter “a” resembles an “o”, or something like that.

Search engines

In recent decades, the search movement has become widespread. Enthusiasts who want to clarify the question of the fate of millions of soldiers who laid down their lives for their Motherland are engaged in a noble task - they find the remains of fallen soldiers, determine by many signs whether they belong to one unit or another, and do everything to find out their last names. No one knows better than these people where to look for those missing in action during the Second World War. In the forests near Yelnya, in the swamps Leningrad region, near Rzhev, where fierce battles took place, they are conducting careful excavations, handing over to their native land its defenders with military honors. Search teams send information to government officials and the military, who update their databases.

Electronic means

Today, everyone who wants to find out the fate of their glorious ancestors has the opportunity to look into the commander’s reports from the battlefields. And you can do this without leaving your home. On the website of the Ministry of Defense archive you can familiarize yourself with unique documents and verify the veracity of the information provided. These pages emanate living history; they seem to create a bridge between eras. Searching for missing persons in the Great Patriotic War by last name is not difficult, the interface is convenient and accessible to everyone, including the elderly. In any case, we need to start with the lists of the dead. After all, the “funeral” could simply not come, and for many decades the soldier was considered missing.

The resource “Memory of the People” was created so that each user could find out where they fought and what awards their grandfathers or great-grandfathers who took part in the Great Patriotic War received. As part of the project, archival documentation such as award lists, orders, operational descriptions of the situation on the battlefield and other original written evidence of the events of those years were transferred into digital form. The site allows each user to find information about their relatives and create a personal archive from documents presented on the site. And, if you want to find out how to use the “Memory of the People” resource to search for WWII participants by the last names of those who returned from the war, then read on.

Project "Memory of the People"

How to search for WWII participants in the Memory of the People

To start the search, open https://pamyat-naroda.ru/, enter the “War Heroes” section, or use the form on the main page (in this case, we will still be automatically transferred to “War Heroes”). Enter the requested data (last name, first name, patronymic and year of birth) into the search bar of the People's Memory service and press the Enter key on the keyboard or LMB on the word “Find”.

Search for a fighter from the main page of the site

If there is not enough data and it was not possible to find a participant in the hostilities, click “Clarify” and enter the information that we know:

1. The place where the fighter was born.
2. Assigned title.
3. Place of service.
4. The date when the participant left the unit or died.
5. Database entry ID.

If this information is not enough, expand additional fields under the data entry form and fill each line with information known to us.

Enter additional information

In our case, only 4 documents were found. But it happens that the personal data of WWII participants coincides, and the search becomes difficult. Or there are a lot of documents, among which it is difficult to find what you need. To simplify the search, there is a panel located above the results.

The refinement panel makes searching easier

If we need information about which unit was commanded by the WWII participant we are looking for, or what awards he had, then click on the desired section in the above panel and narrow the search range. When switching between these sections, on the right in the “Information Sources” block, the places where information about awards or combat activities of a WWII participant are obtained are displayed. Below the search results is a list of all the awards for which the fighter is nominated.

View and save documents

So, the search has been completed, and we have several of the results we need from the People’s Memory service. How to save them so as not to lose valuable information and always have access to it? Opposite each document there are icons with which you can:

1. View original.
2. Download the file to your computer (scanned copy of an act, order or other document in jpg format).
3. Add information about the participant in hostilities to your personal archive on the “Memory of the People” website.

What can you do with documents?

If the load on the resource is too high, access to the personal archive and documents stored in it may be limited. Therefore, if information about a WWII participant is necessary for study or work, it is better to save it in a folder on your computer.

Detailed information about the war heroes on the People's Memory website

Now let’s see where on the “Memory of the People” resource there is more detailed information about the war hero found by last name. Click on the personal data of the WWII participant. A page opens where the last name, first name, patronymic and rank of the fighter are indicated.

Award Details

Also here is information about the award that we selected in the search results: who awarded, when the feat was accomplished, information about the place of birth and call of the hero and other data, including the name of the archive from which this data was taken. Scrolling down the page, we see a scanned document. This is a line on the award list.

Switching between sections, we read:

1. “Feat” - detailed description a feat for which the fighter was nominated for a reward, contained in a combat journal or other documents reflecting the course of military operations.
2. “The first page of an order or decree” - information about the front and combat unit in which the WWII participant served, as well as on behalf of whom and for what he was awarded.
3. “Award sheet” is a document certifying the presentation of an award, with the personal data of the fighter and summary feat.

Line in the award list

Documents from this page can be saved to your computer, scaled in height and/or width, and enlarged/reduced. It is also possible to view the originals of the submitted documents.

Combat path of the hero/unit

The “Memory of the People” resource allows us to track the combat path traveled by the hero and the unit in which he served. To do this, from the “Awarding Documents” section, go to “The Combat Path of the Hero/Unit.”

Combat path of the hero/unit

This page lists all the units in which the soldier served. Switching between them, we see his path and all the military actions in which he participated during the Second World War. Each of the coordinates of the military path means a specific battle. On the left in the table are the dates of operations linked to coordinates on the map.

The military path is shown from the very beginning (from the place of conscription at the regional military registration and enlistment office) to the victorious end. The scale of the map can be increased so that the outlines of the villages where battles took place or near which our army followed will be visible. This effect allows you to examine the course of the war in detail. There are symbols below the map. Based on them, we understand at what time the fighter we are looking for was in the hospital, received awards, where he was born, where he was drafted from, and much more. Also in the panel above the map you can add a higher part, which included the formation where the war hero served, and a lower part. All these nuances make it possible to recreate a more complete picture of the events of the Second World War.

When you click on a specific path coordinate in the upper right corner of the map, we see a sign that contains the following information:

1. The name of the unit where the soldier served.
2. Date of the battle indicated on the map.
3. The number of documents indicating this event.

Description of the battle at the selected coordinate

After clicking on the number of unit documents found, the next page with written evidence of specific battles is loaded. When searching for the desired order/report/report, you can use the general list or narrow your search by switching between section names. That is, if we only need combat logs or maps/diagrams, then we click on the selected category and look for the document that is needed, or look through everything one by one in the Memory of the People. You can also use the convenient filter located to the right of the list of documents. By unchecking or checking the boxes in the sections we need, we narrow our search and find information faster.

By clicking on the name of a report or diagram, journal or order, we study the original evidence of those events, written or drawn by the participants in the war themselves. Based on available information, we will find out in which archive each of the documents is now located, and who compiled them. From this page you can save to your personal archive on the website the found written evidence of the combat path of a WWII participant by the name of those who returned from the war.

Thus, by searching on the “Memory of the People” website for WWII participants by the names of those who returned from the war, you can not only obtain information about the hero’s awards, but also track the progress of battles as fully as possible (as far as available documents allow) from the very place where the soldier was called up.

Write in the comments below the article if you need Additional Information. Many people view them and can help you find the information you need.

Search by combat operations from 1941 to 1945

By selecting the “Memory of the People” section at the top of the website Combat operations ", you can find any person not only by last name in the archives, but also by the name of the battle in which he took part. Go to the section and a map with a search window will open in front of you.

Enter the name of the operation, military unit, and the name of the military leader. Next to the button " Search" there is a button " Specify", which opens additional search filters - start date of the battle locality, completion date, etc..

Map of military operations 1941 - 1945.

Next to the interactive map there is a block with the names of most of the operations that took place between 1941 and 1945. In the right corner of the map there are buttons for switching modes - “Scheme”, “Modern map”, “Satellite map”.

Very convenient to use satellite version, because You can see the terrain and patterns of attacks and combat maneuvers. Under the map there are customizable points with labels of other operations, front lines, directions of attacks of the opposing sides, which can be removed or left.

As mentioned above, work on the “Memory of the People” portal, where a search is carried out by the names and surnames of soldiers in the archive of 1941 - 1945, is still ongoing. Not all documents and original data are available on the portal, because... may still be in process. Therefore, if you could not find the information you need, write your details under this article in the comments. After all, he reads them a large number of users who came here for the same purpose. And it is quite possible that they will be able to help you.