Letters against Oblivion: The F1061 Archive Comes to Life
„Children, I would write volumes if I had a notebook.“
(Fritz, Transnistria, December 1941)
In the winter of 1941, amidst the bitter cold and systematic extermination, people in the Transnistrian camps wrote for their lives. These were pleas for help to their loved ones back home in Bukovina – 192 letters and 21 translations full of fear, hope, and despair. But these voices were silenced: the Romanian Gendarmerie intercepted the courier at the Czernowitz railway station. The letters never reached their addressees; they vanished for decades as File F1061 in the archives.
Today, over 80 years later, we are giving these voices back their space. What began in 2013 as a comprehensive book publication is now being transformed into a digital memory space.
From Book to Social Medium of Memory
This project is far more than a purely digital documentation; it is an invitation to a community of remembrance.
The history of the Holocaust – specifically the Romanian Holocaust – does not consist of abstract numbers alone, but of the immense sum of individual fates that find a voice here.
The Genesis of the Project
The roots of this venture lie in the "Black Milk" project (2010–2012). The results of this research culminated in 2013 in the publication of the volume by Studienverlag. Since then, the book has established itself as an indispensable source for research into the persecution and extermination of the Jewish population in Transnistria.
A Digital Memory Space in Highest Precision
Today, we are taking the next logical step. We are moving from the "I" of individual authorship toward a "We" of collective, participatory reappraisal. In this digital memory space, the letters are presented for the first time in extremely high resolution.
We have deliberately decided against superficial mobile optimization in favor of uncompromising depth of detail. This desktop-centered presentation serves a higher purpose: every fiber of the paper, every stroke of the pen, and every nuance of the handwriting should be palpable. This visual immediacy builds a bridge across 80 years.
A Place for Descendants and Research
This site is addressed equally to descendants of the victims, the scientific community, and an interested public. It is a living process that thrives on your knowledge.
Please note: This translation was generated automatically.
Become Part of the Project
This digital archive does not see itself as a static repository, but as a tool that only gains depth through your interaction and knowledge.
Interactive Source Work
To do justice to the complexity of the original documents, our interface offers specialized tools: All scans of the letters can be opened in a high-resolution lightbox mode, steplessly enlarged, and inverted via keystroke for better legibility of the ink.
Language Barriers and Handwriting
The letters mirror the polyglot world of Bukovina. You will find texts in German and Romanian, partly in Kurrent or Sütterlin script, partly in fleeting handwriting colored by dialect or encrypted due to censorship. Some passages have remained difficult or impossible for us to decipher until now.
The Power of Swarm Intelligence
We rely on your help. Perhaps your family memory holds information, names, or biographical references that we as historians and translators could not have known? Do you recognize a handwriting? Do you know more about a place mentioned in the text?
Correction and Dialogue
In the sections Letters, Persons, and Places, you will find the option to actively "Suggest Changes". Every hint is carefully reviewed by our team. Thus, an increasingly accurate picture of history grows from many individual contributions.
Please note: This translation was generated automatically.
A Contribution to Reappraisal
The reappraisal of history is not a completed act, but an ongoing obligation.
With this archive, we bring a region and a form of extermination into public consciousness that is unfortunately still a peripheral topic in general research.
The Specifics of the Holocaust in Transnistria
The Holocaust in the Romanian-occupied territories of Transnistria differs fundamentally from other theaters. It was neither part of a technocratic "killing industry" nor did it correspond solely to the image of the "Holocaust by bullets." Here, the crime manifested itself primarily through state-organized omission and denied assistance.
Testimonies of Gradual Extermination
The letters are harrowing testimonies to this specific strategy. The lines speak of sheer despair over the agonizing death caused by hunger, cold, and rampant diseases such as typhus. It was a death by abandonment in total isolation, far from all humanity.
From Archive to Individuality
By contextualizing these documents together, we create a social medium of memory that bridges the gap between the archive and the present. We are retrieving the people behind the letters from the anonymity of file numbers and returning their individuality to them.
Please note: This translation was generated automatically.
With kind support: This digital project was financially funded and made possible by the State of Carinthia.