How to find your relative - a participant in the Great Patriotic War by last name, how to find out information about his awards, military ranks, military path and place of death? This memo will help you collect the most detailed information about your ancestor, a participant in the Second World War.
1 Sort out family archives
Ask your family and friends, sort through family archives and write down all the information which you will recognize. Pay special attention to letters and official documents from the front - the postal stamp contains the number of the military unit.
The transcript can be found on the website www.soldat.ru
2 Consult Databases
First of all, check the electronic archives:
Enter the veteran's information into the search fields.
If you didn't find anything - try it various options writing first name, last name and place of birth.
If the surname is common, use the advanced search and enter additional information.
Check your databases regularly- they are constantly updated and new information about your soldier may appear.
Look beyond the search results that appear at the top! Study the entire document - there is additional information there. If the document is multi-page, open the title page - there may be a part number there. Knowing the unit number, you can determine the unit's combat path.
Check out Memory Books- they are stored in military registration and enlistment offices, archives, and local history museums. Information about soldiers was entered into the books according to three criteria: place of birth, place of conscription and place of burial. If there is no information, contact the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War (Moscow, Pobeda Square, 3, index 121096) - all books published before 1996 are stored there.
3 Send a request to the official archives
- in the metric book (stored in regional archives)
- in civil registration records (stored in regional archives or in civil registry offices)
- in household books (stored in the archives of district administrations)
- in personal files (kept at companies)
4 Make a request to the military registration and enlistment office
Do written request to the military registration and enlistment office- indicate in it all the information you have about the veteran (full name, year and place of birth, place of conscription, rank, etc.).
If possible, visit the military registration and enlistment office in person. Before visiting, be sure to:
- Copy the sheets of the draft books containing information about soldiers drafted on the same day as your relative.
- Check all names through the Memorial OBD website (www.obd-memorial.ru)
There is a possibility that they were sent to the same place as your relative.
5 Find out where your relative served
Knowing the unit number (division, battalion, etc.), you can understand exactly where and when your ancestor fought. The battle path can be traced on the “Memory of the People” website
With the help of the Ministry of Defense Russian Federation an electronic bank “Feat of the People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945” was created. which is located at podvignaroda.mil.ru, where you can find information about the exploits and awards of your fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers by first and last name. The search takes place using military archival documents that have been digitized and entered into the site database.
How and where to look?
The “Feat of the People” website is the most complete and up-to-date database on participants in the Great Patriotic War - there is information about almost all soldiers. At the first stage of digitization from 2010 to 2015, 30 million records were made on the awarding of orders and medals “For Courage” and “For Military Merit”, as well as information on 22 million Orders of the Patriotic War I and II degrees for the 40th anniversary of the Victory, and also 200 thousand archival files with a total volume of 100 million sheets!
Such a huge amount of work was done for the main goal of the project:
The main goals of the project are to perpetuate the memory of all heroes of the Victory, regardless of rank, scale of feat, award status, military-patriotic education of youth using the example of the military exploits of their fathers, as well as creating a factual basis to counter attempts to falsify the history of the War.
There are 3 main search options:
- Search for people and their awards
- Search for decrees and awards orders
- Search data by place and time
To find a person, use the first search option, to do this, open the website http://podvignaroda.mil.ru/ and go to the “People and Awards” tab and enter the last name and first name of the person whose awards you want to find.
To search for decrees and data on the location of military operations, we recommend using another site - “Memory of the People”, which will be discussed below.
If you want to search by award number, you will not be able to do this, because... Award numbers are not indicated in the award documents.
If information about a person’s fate is not known, then the “Feat of the People” website will not suit you, because... it does not contain data on the dead or missing. Such information should be searched on the website www.obd-memorial.ru, trying different spellings of surnames and names because wartime documents may have contained errors in the name or date of birth.
Let us remind you that the initiator of this project is the Department for the Development of Information and Telecommunication Technologies of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, and technical support is provided by the ELAR company. Thanks to them for this site!
The information is taken from two funds: the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (CA MO) and the Central Naval Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (CVMA).
Memory of the people
Later, a more modern website was opened https://pamyat-naroda.ru/ “Memory of the People” with documents of the Second World War, which has a more pleasant design and, most importantly, more information, maps and historical data.
With the help of the “Memory of the People” portal, it has become even easier to reconstruct the military path of your grandfather, find documents about injuries and awards.
The People's Memory project was implemented in accordance with the decision of the Russian Victory Organizing Committee of July 2013, supported by the instructions of the President and the Decree of the Russian Government in 2014. The project provides for the publication on the Internet of archival documents and documents about the losses and awards of soldiers and officers of the First World War, the development of the projects previously implemented by the Russian Ministry of Defense about the Second World War OBD Memorial and Feat of the People into one project - Memory of the People.
On the page https://pamyat-naroda.ru/ops/ you can familiarize yourself with the plans for 226 operations with detailed diagrams on the map. Each page about the operation contains the names of commanders and numbers of military units, as well as a description of the result of the operation.
Picture 1 - Modern map combat operations during the Second World War.
On the page https://pamyat-naroda.ru/memorial/ you can find military graves in your city. Just enter the name of the city and click the “Find” button. In total, it contains information about 30,588 burials around the world, except the United States.
Figure 2 - Military graves indicating first and last names.
The page about the burial contains information about its condition (good, bad, excellent), type of burial, number of graves, number of known and unknown buried. Also available on the page is a list of those buried with names and dates of birth and death.
Database
www.podvignaroda.ru
www.obd-memorial.ru
www.pamyat-naroda.ru
www.rkka.ru/ihandbook.htm
www.moypolk.ru
www.dokst.ru
www.polk.ru
www.pomnite-nas.ru
www.permgani.ru
Otechestvort.rf, rf-poisk.ru
rf-poisk.ru/page/34
soldat.ru
memento.sebastopol.ua
memory-book.com.ua
soldat.ru - a set of reference books for independently searching 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 the code names of military units (institutions) in 1939-1943, a directory of the location of Red Army hospitals in 1941-1945 years);
www.rkka.ru - a directory of military abbreviations (as well as charters, manuals, directives, orders and personal documents of wartime).
Libraries
oldgazette.ru – old newspapers (including those from the war period);
www.rkka.ru – description of military operations of the Second World War, post-war analysis of the events of the Second World War, military memoirs.
Military cards
www.rkka.ru – military topographic maps with the combat situation (by war periods and operations).
Search Engine Sites
www.rf-poisk.ru is the official website of the Russian Search Movement.
Archives
www.archives.ru – Federal Archive Agency (Rosarkhiv);
www.rusarchives.ru – industry portal “Archives of Russia”;
archive.mil.ru – Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense;
rgvarchive.ru
rgaspi.org
rgavmf.ru – Russian State Archive of the Navy (RGAVMF). The archive stores documents navy Russia (late 17th century - 1940). Naval documentation of the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period is stored in the Central Naval Archive (CVMA) in Gatchina, which is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Ministry of Defense;
victory.rusarchives.ru – a list of federal and regional archives of Russia (with direct links and descriptions of collections of photo and film documents from the period of the Great Patriotic War).
Partners of the Stars of Victory project
www.mil.ru – Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
www.histrf.ru – Russian Military Historical Society.
www.rgo.ru – Russian Geographical Society.
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Database
www.podvignaroda.ru – a publicly accessible electronic bank of documents on recipients and awards during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945;
www.obd-memorial.ru - a generalized data bank about defenders of the Fatherland, those killed and missing during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period;
www.pamyat-naroda.ru is a publicly accessible data bank about the fate of participants in the Great Patriotic War. Search for places of primary burials and documents about awards, service, victories and hardships on the battlefields;
www.rkka.ru/ihandbook.htm – awarded the Order of the Red Banner in the period from 1921 to 1931;
www.moypolk.ru - information about participants in the Great Patriotic War, including home front workers - living, dead, dead and missing. Collected and replenished by participants in the all-Russian action “Immortal Regiment”;
www.dokst.ru – information about those killed in captivity in Germany;
www.polk.ru – information about Soviet and Russian soldiers missing in the wars of the 20th century (including the pages “Great Patriotic War" and "Unpresented awards");
www.pomnite-nas.ru – photographs and descriptions of military graves;
www.permgani.ru – database on the website of the Perm State Archive modern history. Includes basic biographical information about former servicemen of the Red Army (natives of the Perm region 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 special state inspection (filtration);
Otechestvort.rf, rf-poisk.ru – electronic version of the book “Names from Soldiers’ Medallions”, volumes 1-6. Contains alphabetical information about those killed during the war whose remains, discovered during search operations, were identified;
rf-poisk.ru/page/34 / – books of memory (by regions of Russia, with direct links and annotations);
soldat.ru – books of memory (for individual regions, types of troops, individual units and formations, about those who died in captivity, those who died in Afghanistan, Chechnya);
memento.sebastopol.ua – Crimean virtual necropolis;
memory-book.com.ua – electronic book of memory of Ukraine;
soldat.ru - a set of reference books for independently searching 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 the code names of military units (institutions) in 1939-1943, a directory of the location of Red Army hospitals in 1941-1945 years);
rgvarchive.ru – Russian State Military Archive (RGVA). The archive stores documents about the military 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 are also 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 USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and institutions of its system (GUPVI 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 archive's website you can also find guides and reference books that make working with it easier.
rgaspi.org – Russian State Archive of Socio-Political Information (RGASPI). The period of the Great Patriotic War in RGASPI is represented by documents of the emergency body state power – State Committee defense (GKO, 1941-1945) and the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief;
Good day everyone!
Not long ago I tried to help an acquaintance find relatives who fought in the Second World War (1941-1945). Oddly enough, we managed to find his grandfather quite quickly, the number of his unit where he fought, and also looked at several of his awards. My friend was pleased and proud of his grandfather, but I started thinking...
I think that almost every family has relatives who participated in the Great Patriotic War, and many would like to know more about them (which is why I decided to write this article). Moreover, many old people do not like to talk about the front, and often in the family they do not even know all the grandfather’s awards!
By the way, many people mistakenly believe (and I did until recently) that in order to find at least something, you need to know a lot of information about a person, know how to access archives (and where to go), have a lot of free time, etc. . But in fact, now, to try to start a search, it’s enough to know your first and last name.
And so, below I will consider several interesting sites in more detail...
Addition!
If you have old photographs and you notice how they are getting worse and worse every year, digitize and restore them. Now any novice user can handle this -
No. 1: Feat of the people
A very, very interesting site created by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. It is a large database in which all available documents from military archives are entered: where and who fought, what awards he received, what feats, etc. Absolutely everyone is included, regardless of rank and scale of achievement. I can add that the size of the site’s database has no analogues.
Then you will see a list of found people: note that there can be a lot of them if your relative has a common first and last name. Opposite each person his year of birth, rank, order, medal (if any) will be displayed.
The card itself displays quite a lot of information about the person: rank, place of conscription, place of service, date of feat (if any), archival documents about the award, registration card, photo of a piece of paper describing the feat, medals and orders (example below).
In general, quite informative and complete. I recommend starting your search for a person from this site. If you are lucky and you find information about him here, then you will receive pretty decent information to continue the search (you will know the year of birth, the unit where you served, where you were drafted from, etc. details that many no longer know about).
By the way, despite the fact that all the basic information has already been posted on the site, from time to time it is updated with new archival data. Therefore, if you haven’t found anything, try to come back after some time and search again, also use the sites that I will give below.
No. 2: OBD Memorial
The full name of the site is Generalized Data Bank.
The main goal of this site is to enable citizens to find and learn about the fate of their relatives, find out their burial place, where they served, and other information.
The Military Memorial Center of the Russian Armed Forces has carried out unique work, as a result of which you can use a reference system of global significance!
The data used to populate the database of this site is taken from official archival documents located in Central Archives Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Central Naval Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Russian State Military Archive, State Archive of the Russian Federation, etc.
During the work, more than 16.8 million documents and over 45 thousand passports of military graves were scanned and posted online.
How to search for a person in the OBD
Yes, in general it’s standard. On the main page of the site, enter all the information you know into the search fields. It would be very nice to enter at least the first name, last name, and patronymic. Then click the search button (example below).
In the data found, you will see the person’s date and place of birth, which you can use to navigate and start viewing the necessary profiles.
In the form you can find out the following information: full name, date and place of birth, date and place of conscription, military rank, reason for disposal, date of disposal, name of source of information, fund number, source of information. And also look at the scanned sheet itself with archival data.
No. 3: Memory of the people
Another site with a huge database created by the Ministry of Defense. The main goal of the project is to enable all users to obtain information about participants in the Great Patriotic War through new web tools and the development of generalized data banks “Memorial” and “Feat of the People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.”
To start searching for a person, just enter his full name (if any, then his year of birth). Then click the "Find" button.
Next, you will be shown all found people with similar initials. By opening a card for a person, you will find out: his date of birth, place of conscription, military units, awards, dates of feats, numbers of funds - sources of information, archive, you can see scans of what awards were given for.
In addition, on this site you can see what the path along which your grandfather moved and fought was like. (example on the map below: the beginning of the journey near Novosibirsk, then Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny, etc.).
Note: the map is quite large, and the screenshot below shows a small piece of it.
Where my grandfather was and fought - the path on the map!
No. 4: Immortal Regiment
This is the official website of the Immortal Regiment movement. Those who live in Russia probably know and have heard about it. In general, I mentioned this site for the simple reason - that you can try searching on it (to do this, simply enter the required full name into the search term of the site).
Search by movement database (from the Immortal Regiment website)
By the way, I also want to note that the site has already collected about half a million profiles and they are constantly being added. In addition, you can tell your story about your grandfather (everything you know) and his profile will be entered into the site database (what if someone adds your information?!).
Screenshot from the Immortal Regiment website
From the soldier’s profile you can find out quite detailed information about him: full name, rank, region, locality, history, etc. An example of a card is shown in the screenshot below.
What a soldier’s profile will look like (screenshot from the Immortal Regiment website)
If you are looking for the burial place of your relatives who participated in the Second World War, I recommend that you also read this article:.
In it you will learn how to correctly create a request to the archive, how to formalize it, and where exactly to send it. In general, very useful information.
Well, that’s all for me, I hope I helped, if not find it, then at least gave useful “food” to start searching...
The Great Patriotic War brought a lot of destruction to everything Soviet Union. And the greatest losses were people. Families were destroyed and still want to find their relatives.
Dear readers! The article talks about typical ways to resolve legal issues, but each case is individual. If you want to know how solve exactly your problem- contact a consultant:
APPLICATIONS AND CALLS ARE ACCEPTED 24/7 and 7 days a week.
It's fast and FOR FREE!
This is why there is such an opportunity as searching for WWII veterans by last name in Russia (Great Patriotic War) in 2020.
What you need to know
In the Russian Federation, there is a problem of finding those citizens who were participants in hostilities. Basically, these are the dead and missing heroes of Russia.
The search may be of interest to those who are looking for information about their own relatives. And perhaps some records in the databases will help find the places of their burial or last place of stay. In addition, the bank of unawarded medals is still full.
In 2020, there are many Internet resources that allow you to search for information depending on the amount of data that a citizen has on hand.
Thanks to these systems for searching and storing information, each person can freely search and find information about their own relatives or help other people find theirs. Because their cases may have been forgotten in the archives for more than 20 years.
Important Concepts
While reviewing this topic, the average user may have difficulty understanding a number of terms. Deciphering them in advance will allow you to more quickly process the necessary information:
| Concept | Its designation |
| Veteran | A title awarded to a person for services to the country and state. This could be service in military units, or hard work in production. |
| WWII | The Great Patriotic War, which began in 1941 and ended in 1945. It was part of the time period of World War II, although it began earlier - in 1939 and ended later, with the surrender of Japan in 1946 |
| Reward | An insignia that is used to express a special degree of gratitude for certain merits |
| Portal | A large website located on the Internet and including a collection of information intended for wide use and open to access from anywhere in the world |
Where to begin
Initially, you should understand that the search will be carried out across several sites and portals. Separate pieces of information have been collected on different resources.
And if you didn’t manage to find a relative the first time, then you can try another site. Mandatory components of the search must include information about the participant in the war.
Various resources allow you to find data of this nature:
- about the dead and missing;
- those who worked in the rear;
- received awards;
- those killed in German concentration camps;
- about decorated living combatants.
You can search for all these indicators. Therefore, you need to decide in which area this operation will be performed. After this, you can proceed to select the required portal to search.
It is better to make a list of several - this will increase the options for matches and information verification. Plus, some sites may have an incomplete database and lack any details.
The legislative framework
The Immortal Regiment in Russia acts as a public patriotic organization. In this regard, their work, and the work of the resources of these institutions, is subject to accounting from the point of view of Federal Law No. 82-FZ “On Public Associations”.
This legal document allows the creation of international relations between societies - in accordance with Article 46. This makes it possible to exchange information and information on various issues.
Many discrepancies exist within the framework of the activities of such resources with Federal Law No. 152-FZ “On Personal Data”. Article 8 defines the categories of sources of such information that are available to all people. These can be considered reference books and databases. In this case, it will be necessary to obtain consent to publish information.
In most cases, Internet resources post data based on requests from citizens - relatives of the deceased, who want to provide information about their ancestor.
But there are also situations when government documents are declassified. In this case, Federal Law No. 261-FZ “On Amendments to the Federal Law “On Personal Data”” applies. Article 9, paragraph 7, talks about consent in the event of a person's death.
How to find WWII veterans by last name
Searching by last name is one of the most difficult options. The fact is that the more information there is about a citizen, the easier it is to find him. Plus, the surname can be quite common.
And this complicates the search, since the spread will be large. It is worth considering that on different sites the databases consist of different amounts of information about people. Thus, the data ranges from 9 to 13 million people.
In order for the procedure to be successful, it is worth clarifying the following list of data in advance:
- last name, first name and patronymic;
- date of birth - year, month and day;
- place of residence or from which locality he was called up for service, in which unit he served.
This is the minimum set of data that will allow you to find the necessary WWII veteran. Next, you can decide on the search method option. Because there are a lot of them for 2020.
Through the archives of military operations
Archival documentation allows you to find information about those who served in different years, in accordance with the hostilities in which they took part. The history of the veteran can be traced through the records about him.
Such data is mainly stored in Moscow:
These are the main archives, but there are many of them around the country, so you should search according to the citizen’s place of service. This can also be done by contacting the military commissariat that called him up.
Mechanism of action through sites
Thanks to websites, you can get information about a person without leaving home. In this case, you will only need a set of existing information and time. Next, you need to select the portal through which the search is carried out. And after that, information about the person is entered into the search form.
For example, Ivanov, drafted in 1943. The system generates a list, by viewing which you can find your relative. If such an operation does not give the desired result, you should try using another site.
Memorial
OBD Memorial allows you to find information about a citizen using a short list of data:
- year of birth;
- rank.
Using this information, data is obtained about the fate of a person - whether he is in the database of the dead or missing.
Photo: search for WWII veterans by last name on the Memorial website
There is also an advanced search option, which includes entering data about:
- in which documents to search;
- place of conscription, burial;
- date and place of disposal;
- Which hospitals were you in?
It is possible to search for prisoners in the camps:
Photo: search for prisoners in camps on the Memorial website
Winners
This site was created for the 60th anniversary of the Victory and has more than 1.5 million WWII veterans. Information is included about those who were in Russia and about those who are now considered citizens of another country.
The search has a standard form that asks you to write the veteran’s name and select his region of residence:
There is also an interactive map of military operations on this site. With its help you can view the progress of troops. And each stage is accompanied by a detailed commentary.
Photo: interactive map of military operations on the Pobeditel website
Feat of the people
This online resource contains more than 12.5 million records of exploits, and as of 2015, statistics established that more than 500 thousand undelivered awards found their owners using this site.
The portal contains three divisions:
- people and awards;
- documentation;
- geography of military operations.
All known data can be used for searching. There are both standard and advanced searches:
Photo: search for WWII veterans by last name on the Feat of the People website
Initially, you need to go to the organization’s website and click on the people and awards button. Then a standard search will appear, giving you the opportunity to expand it and enter more information about the veteran.
Other options
The My Regiment website involves searching not only military personnel, but also those who lived and worked in the rear. Here you can find information about dead, missing and living people.
Photo: search for WWII veterans by last name on the My Regiment website
At the standard level, you can enter any information about a person, and then conduct an advanced search indicating ranks, place of residence, and so on. Plus, you can tell your story about a WWII veteran from your own family. To do this, register on the site and write a story.
Is it possible to search by awards?
The easiest way to find a veteran is by awards. If there are insignia left or it is known that a rank has been assigned, then such a search will be effective. After all, this will uniqueize the citizen’s request and a more thorough search will be carried out in the database.