“STRATY.PL” is an electronic database created by the Institute of National Remembrance. It contains information about victims and people repressed by the German Nazi regime – Poles, Jews, Roma and Ukrainians who were citizens of the Republic of Poland. The portal was consulted by RMF FM reporter Kacper Wróblewski.
To find your ancestor, after entering the website straty.pl click on the “Search information in the database” tab.
Next, we go to a special search engine where we can enter, among others: name and surname of the person sought or place of birth.. The more data we fill in, the easier it will be to find all the information.
From the database we can find out, for example, when and where a particular person was sent to forced labor in the Third Reich and what he did there..
If there is no information about our ancestors, we can contact researchers through the website “World War II Victims Information Center“.
The database has over 5.5 million records. A record is not equal to a person. There are cases where the database contains several records relating to the same person.
The Institute of National Memory has been collecting the necessary documentation for almost 20 years. The director of the IPN archive, Marzena Kruk, told RMF FM that everyone can contribute to its construction.
Those people who have knowledge; it may be knowledge about strangers, but that’s it, they remember neighbors and friends, we won’t find it in any archive. If people don’t share their knowledge and memories with us, this database will never be complete. – explains Kruk, adding that sometimes little is enough to discover the secrets of history.
And our family always told us that our great-grandfather left home and never came back. And imagine that based on so little information; sure, we have our grandfather’s first name, last name, date of birth; sometimes we are able to recreate his entire story. Sometimes we can show people where that grandfather’s grave is. These are extraordinary moments. – admits the archivist.
There is also a “Attach information” tab on the site, thanks to which we can report data about our loved ones..
To paraphrase the words of the poem “Mr. Cogito on the Need for Precision” by the remarkable Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, our task is to count them and call them by name. Therefore, we want to mention each repressed person by name and surname and include information about their tragic fate in the straty.pl database. – said the director of the IPN archive, Marzena Kruk, in an interview with the Polish Press Agency, explaining the significance of the creation of the database.
The archivist also explained that as far as the source of the data is concerned, the IPN staff are currently focusing on the original documentation of the German occupation administration and post-war investigation and trial materials relating to German crimes. The database also contains data from, among others: concentration and extermination camps.
When asked whether the project could be considered completed, Kruk replied that the strata.pl database is an open database, meaning that it is systematically updated with new data, “and In fact, the project will last as long as new and previously unknown information about the fate of Polish citizens during the Second World War emerges..
IPN’s ambition is also to connect three databases in the future – straty.pl., Repressed Database Index and Volhynia.
In this way, a database would be created containing the names of people repressed by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Ukrainian nationalists. – explains the person responsible for the IPN Archive.
