Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Thousands of Unknown Nazi Persecution Sites Discovered by Researchers

Tens of thousands of unknown Nazi persecution sites have been discovered by researchers working on an encyclopedia of Holocaust sites for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

According to a report by the Times of Israel, researchers were tasked with creating a record of labor camps, military brothels, ghettos, POW camps and concentration camps. The volume, “Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945,” is due out in 2025.

At first, officials at the Holocaust museum believed that researchers would discover 5,000 such sites. But since 2001, when the research began, more than 42,500 such locations have discovered — and they keep being found.

For the site to appear in the book, researchers had to corroborate its existence with multiple witness accounts and also official documents.

“You could not turn a corner in Germany [during the war]… without finding someone there against their will,” said Geoffrey Megargee, the project leader, who spoke ahead of Friday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.