Holocaust-era property database sets mark

A database of Holocaust-era property records has become the largest publicly available, single-source database of lost Jewish property assets from that era.

Project HEART-Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Taskforce, an initiative of the Jewish Agency for Israel in cooperation with the government of Israel, announced last week that the database hit the 1.5 million mark in the number of available records.

The online database was unveiled May 1 with 500,000 records. The records have been made available to help Jewish families identify personal property confiscated by the Nazis and to help victims seek restitution, according to the project.

The records include property addresses, lists of homeowners, professions, lists of known confiscated properties, business directories, insurance policies and other archival information.

“This is the first worldwide list of property confiscated, looted or forcibly sold during the Holocaust era to be made available to survivors and their heirs,” Anya Verkhovskaya, HEART project director, said, adding that “the response to the database has been overwhelming, with approximately 100,000 hits happening each week.”