How to find out where my grandfather fought in WWII, what awards did he have? Databases for searching information about participants of the Great Patriotic War on the Internet Sviridenko nikolay Iosifovich participant of the Great Patriotic War
The Great Patriotic War brought a lot of destruction to the entire Soviet Union. And the biggest losses were people. Families who still want to find their relatives have been destroyed.
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For this, such an opportunity as the search for veterans of the Great Patriotic War by last name in Russia (the Great Patriotic War) in 2020 works.
What you need to know
In the Russian Federation, there is a problem of finding those citizens who were participants in the hostilities. Basically, these are the dead and missing heroes of Russia.
The search may be of interest to those who are looking for data about their own relatives. And it is possible that some records in the databases will help to find the places of their burial or the last place of their stay. In addition, the bank of non-awarded 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 in his hands.
Thanks to these systems for searching and storing information, everyone can freely search and find data about their own relatives or help other people find their own. Because cases about them may be forgotten in the archives more than 20 years ago.
Important concepts
While exploring this topic, the average user may have difficulty understanding a number of terms. Their decryption in advance will allow faster processing of the necessary information:
| Concept | Its designation |
| Veteran | The title that is awarded to a person for services to the country and state. It can 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 | A badge of distinction that is used to express a special degree of gratitude for certain merits |
| Portal | Large site located on the Internet and includes a collection of information intended for general use and is open to access from anywhere in the world |
Where to begin
Initially, you should understand that the search will be carried out on several sites and portals. Separate pieces of information are collected on different resources.
And if the first time you didn't manage to find a relative, then you can try another site. Required components of the search should be information about the participant in the war.
Various resources allow you to find data of this nature:
- about the dead and missing;
- working in the rear;
- received awards;
- those killed in German concentration camps;
- about awarded living combatants.
All of these metrics can be searched. Therefore, you need to decide in which area this operation will be performed. After that, you can turn to select the required portal for the search.
It is better to make a list of several - this will increase the options for matches, information verification. Plus, on some sites there may be an incomplete database and the absence of 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 normative 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 the 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 mandatory to obtain consent to the publication of information.
In most cases, Internet resources post data based on requests from citizens - relatives of the victims who want to enter information about their ancestor.
But there are also situations when declassification of documents of a state nature is carried out. In this case, Federal Law No. 261-FZ “On Amendments to the Federal Law“ On Personal Data ”” is in effect. Article 9, paragraph 7, refers to 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 last name can be quite common.
And this complicates the search, since the spread will be large. It should be borne in mind that on different sites the databases consist of different amounts of information about people. So, 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:
- surname, name and patronymic;
- date of birth - year, month and day;
- place of residence or from which locality he was called to service, in which unit he served.
This is the minimum set of data that will allow you to find the required WWII veteran. Further, it will be possible to decide on the option of the search method. Since there are a lot of them for 2020.
Through the archives of the fighting
Archival documentation allows you to find information about those who served in different years, in accordance with the type of hostilities they took part in. The veteran's history can be traced back to his records.
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 in accordance with the place of service of the citizen. This can be done by contacting the military commissariat that called him.
Mechanism of action through sites
Thanks to the sites, you can get information about a person without leaving your home. In this case, you 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 was drafted in 1943. The system generates a list, looking through which you can find your relative. If such an operation did not give the desired result, you should try using another site.
Memorial
HBS Memorial allows you to find information about a citizen using a short list of data:
- year of birth;
- rank.
Based on this information, they receive data 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 call, burial;
- date and place of disposal;
- what hospitals he was 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. Includes information about those who were in Russia, and those who are now considered a citizen of another country.
The search has a standard form, which offers to write the name of the veteran and select the region of his residence:
There is also an interactive map of military operations on this site. With its help, you can view the progress of the troops. And each of the stages is accompanied by a detailed commentary.
Photo: interactive map of military operations on the Winner website
The feat of the people
This Internet resource contains more than 12.5 million records of exploits and for 2015 statistics established that more than 500 thousand unreceived awards with the help of this site found their owners.
The portal contains three divisions:
- people and awards;
- the documents;
- geography of military operations.
All known data can be used for the search. There are both standard and advanced searches:
Photo: search for veterans of the Great Patriotic War by last name on the site feat of the People
Initially, you need to go to the organization's website and click the people and awards button. Then a standard search will appear, making it possible to expand it and enter more information about the veteran.
Other options
The My Regiment website involves searching not only for the military, but also for those who lived in the rear and worked. It contains data on the dead, missing and living people.
Photo: search for veterans of the Great Patriotic War by last name on the website My regiment
At the standard level, you can enter any information about a person, and then conduct an augmented search indicating titles, place of residence, and so on. Plus, you can tell your story about a WWII veteran from your own family. To do this, they register on the site and write a story.
Is it possible to search by awards
It is the easiest way to find a veteran by awards. If there are insignia left or it is known about the assignment of any rank, then such a search will be effective. After all, this will make the request of a citizen unique and a more thorough search will be carried out in the database.
With the help of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, an electronic bank was created "The feat of the people in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945." which is located at podvignaroda.mil.ru, on it you can find information about the exploits and awards of your fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers by name and surname. The search is carried out according to military archival documents that have been digitized and entered into the site's database.
How and where to look?
The site "Heroic deeds of the people" is the most complete and up-to-date database on the participants in the Great Patriotic War - there is information about almost all the 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 of I and II degrees for the 40th anniversary of Victory, and also 200 thousand archival files with a total volume of 100 million sheets!
Such a huge amount of work has been done for the main goal of the project:
The main goals of the project are to perpetuate the memory of all heroes of Victory, regardless of rank, scale of feat, award status, military-patriotic education of youth on the example of military exploits of their fathers, as well as creation of a factual basis for countering attempts to falsify the history of the War.
There are 3 main search options:
- Search for people and their awards
- Search for decrees and orders for rewarding
- Finding data by location and time
To find a person, use the first search option, for this open the site 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 place of hostilities, we advise you to use another site - "Memory of the People", which will be described below.
If you want to search by the award number, you will not be able to do this, because the award numbers are not indicated in the awarding documents.
If the information about the fate of a person is not known, then the "People's Feat" site will not suit you, because it does not contain data on the dead or missing. Such information should be looked for on the website www.obd-memorial.ru, trying different spellings of surnames and first names. wartime documents could contain errors in the name or date of birth.
Recall that the initiator of this project is the Department of Information and Telecommunication Technologies Development of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, and technical support is provided by ELAR. Thanks to them for this site!
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 (TsVMA).
Memory of the people
Later, a more modern website https://pamyat-naroda.ru/ "Memory of the People" was opened with documents of the Second World War, which has a nicer 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 restore the combat path of your grandfather, to find documents on wounds and awards.
The Memory of the People project was implemented in accordance with the decision of the Russian Victory Organizing Committee of July 2013, supported by the instruction of the President and the Decree of the Government of Russia in 2014. The project provides for the publication on the Internet of archival documents and documents on the losses and awards of soldiers and officers of the First World War, the development of projects previously implemented by the Russian Ministry of Defense about the Second World War WDS Memorial and the Hero of the People in one project - Memory of the People.
On the page https://pamyat-naroda.ru/ops/ you can see plans for 226 operations with detailed schemes on the map. Each page about the operation contains the names of the commanders and the numbers of the military units, as well as a description of the result of the operation.
Figure 1 - Modern map of military operations during the Second World War.
On the page https://pamyat-naroda.ru/memorial/ you can find military graves in your city. It is enough to enter the name of the city and click the "Find" button. In total, there is information about 30,588 burials around the world, except for the United States.
Figure 2 - Military burials with names and surnames.
The page about the burial contains information about its condition (good, bad, excellent), the type of burial, the number of graves, the number of known and unknown burials. Also on the page is a list of buried persons with names and dates of birth and death.