This collection was indexed by World Memory Project contributors from the digitized holdings of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG-43.094M: Selected Records of the Departmental Archives of Ain. For more information about this collection, click on the collection title above to access the USHMM’s catalog record, or email [email protected]
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This database contains records relating to Jewish affairs and internment of Jews in the French department of Ain, near the Swiss border. Most of the department’s territory was under the Vichy Regime, the government of unoccupied France. Although officially neutral, Vichy France collaborated closely with Germany. The original documents are held by the Archives départementales de l'Ain.
Beginning in the autumn of 1940, Vichy administrators promulgated anti-Semitic legislation, closely patterned on that of German anti-Jewish decrees and ordinances in place in the German-occupied zone. The following spring, the Vichy government created a central agency, the General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs (Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives), to coordinate anti-Jewish legislation and policy. French authorities also interned thousands of Jews under deplorable conditions in French-administered detention camps.
The database also includes information about Freemasons, who were often linked to Jews in Nazi propaganda and also subjected to discrimination and persecution. As they conquered Europe, the Germans forcibly dissolved Masonic organizations and confiscated their assets and documents wherever they established an occupation regime.
What You Can Find
Entries in this index may include:
- birth date
- marital status
- document date
- relative's name
While images of the source documents are not included in this database, they can be ordered from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Additional details about these victims may be included in the original records. While the index is freely accessible from Ancestry.com, the images of these records are not available in this database. Copies of the images can be ordered at no cost from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Click here for ordering information.