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EZW EXPLAINED on November 20, 1999
The North Star Chapter's genealogy workshop was conducted by Jan (nee Huber) and Tom Stangl who answered the question " BDC / EWZ -- What is it --What can be found there?" To answer the questions one needs to understand that BDC is the Berlin Document Center and EWZ is a acronym for Einwanderzentralstelle. The EZW are records that are housed at the Berlin Document Center in Berlin, Germany as well as in the College Park, MD area. The records were captured, during the fall of Hitler's military, by the US forces and to make a long story short, are available for viewing via microfilm.
The Berlin Document Center was established in Berlin, Germany by the US Army to store and process German Government documents which were captured in 1945. Now microfilmed, about 10% of the films involve records of the Einwandererzentralstelle (EWZ - Central Immigration Office) organization, which was controlled by the German SS. The EWZ documents include records of ethnic Germans from the regions of the Black Sea, Volga, Crimea, Bessarabia & Dobrudscha, and Volhynia as well as the Baltic States, Poland, Bulgaria, France and Yugoslavia .
The discussion held by Jan and Tom focused on an understanding of how the records came into existence, why they were recorded and the outcome of the immigrants that are listed. They showed many examples of their research, talked about some of the stories behind the research and connected some North Star Chapter members with information about missing people after some 55 years after the records were captured. Tom and Jan are certainly experts in the EWZ research and have most certainly spent hundreds of hours reviewing the microfilm for clues and bits of information about our German-Russian people.
Information within the EWZ include:
Anträge - the Applications for Naturalization from persons of German ethnicity from German occupied territories, 1939 - 1945. In particular, EWZ50 contains Russian (including Ukrainian Volhynia) records - 843 roll; 110,000 files of 275,500 people. Anträge files often contain Stammblatt (family forms), Naturalization application, Naturalization document, Resettlement Identity Card (seldom available), Nationality Identity Card, Hitler Youth data forms, Lebenslauf (life stories), Bescheinigung (receipt of surrendered documents), claims of lost property, family tree forms and correspondence as associated with the EWZ.
Rasse-Kartei, EWZ56 - Race Cards, some 546 rolls containing informtion of the racial exams of selected individuals.
E/G Kartei, EWZ57, - Health Registry Cards, 1964 rolls containing information about every immigrant 15 years older or greater. In some cases,photos of the applicant are included.
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