What specific Nazi transport lists and camp registers survive for Auschwitz and Treblinka, and where can they be accessed?
Executive summary
Surviving Nazi transport lists and camp registers for Auschwitz are substantial but partial: original SS registration cards, death books, quarantine and transfer lists, and compiled deportation/transport lists are held in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum archives and in major international repositories such as the Arolsen Archives and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) [1] [2] [3]. For Treblinka the documentary trail is far thinner and far more fragmentary: researchers rely on postwar compilations, fragmentary registers, town‑level deportation lists and secondary tables assembled in institutional databases rather than a continuous camp‑run register comparable to Auschwitz [4] [5] [6].
1. What survives for Auschwitz: types of lists and where to find them
The Auschwitz‑related documentary record that survives includes original German camp records (admission/prisoner card indices), parts of death books of the civil registry office, prisoner transfer and quarantine lists, registration number lists and transport/transfer lists compiled during 1941–1944; many of these are preserved in the Archives of the Auschwitz‑Birkenau State Museum and represented in the museum’s online database of victims and transports [2] [1] [7]. Independent international repositories also hold filmed or original fragments: the Arolsen Archives catalogues multiple Auschwitz transport and prisoner lists and related registers (e.g., transport and transfer lists 03.05.1941–14.07.1944 and prisoners’ lists and quarantine lists) that can be searched in their online collections [3] [8]. The USHMM likewise holds microfilmed sets of Auschwitz records (for example the D‑Au SS Standortarzt series, hospital books and prisoner transfer lists) and specific transport lists such as the May 5, 1943 Berlin→Auschwitz deportation list in its Survivors Registry holdings [9] [10].
2. What survives for Treblinka: fragmentary registers and compiled lists
Treblinka, an Operation Reinhard extermination camp, produced far fewer surviving name‑level camp registers because large parts of the administration’s records were never kept or were destroyed; what researchers use instead are fragmentary compilations, town or ghetto‑based deportation lists, and postwar registers that document deportations to Treblinka and the estimated numbers killed [6] [4] [5]. The USHMM’s Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database and related collection entries index items described as “Registers, statistics about deportations to Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka” and include community‑level lists (for example lists of residents of Garwolin who perished at Treblinka), but they are explicitly patchy and derived from multiple sources rather than a continuous Treblinka camp register [4] [5].
3. How to access these materials in practice
Researchers can query the Auschwitz‑Birkenau State Museum’s online search tools and its victims/transports portal to locate transport records and linked prisoner entries; the museum also accepts queries to its Digital Repository for additional archival assistance [7] [1]. The Arolsen Archives publishes descriptions and many digitized items online (including specific transport and prisoner lists for Auschwitz) and offers search and research services through its International Center on Nazi Persecution platform [3] [8]. The USHMM provides searchable catalog entries and digitized files in its Survivors and Victims Database and archival catalog; examples include photocopies of transport lists and microfilmed Auschwitz series in its holdings [10] [9] [5].
4. Limitations, gaps and why the picture is incomplete
All major custodians emphasize that surviving records are incomplete: the Auschwitz Museum notes that only about ten percent of Auschwitz documentation survives and that many records were destroyed or removed as front lines approached, while the Arolsen Archives warns that its holdings for Auschwitz and several camps are very incomplete and that extermination camps frequently did not carry name registers for those murdered on arrival [1] [11]. For Treblinka the scarcity is greater; the absence of comprehensive camp registration for murdered deportees means historians must reconstruct transports and victim lists from scattered municipal lists, survivor testimony and postwar compilations rather than from an intact camp registry [4] [6].
5. Alternative sources and provenance caveats
Beyond Auschwitz’s original SS records and the named institutional repositories, many transport lists accessible today are copies, postwar compilations, or derived indices held by regional archives, Jewish community files, or trial exhibits; the Auschwitz Museum explicitly notes cooperation with numerous institutions whose copies enrich its holdings, and catalog descriptions at Arolsen and USHMM frequently indicate microfilm or postwar provenance [12] [13] [3]. Users should therefore treat individual lists with attention to provenance notes in each repository because some entries are reconstructions, partially crossed‑out originals, or postwar aggregated registers [10] [8].