Finding a Soviet WWII soldier: Pamyat Naroda and OBD Memorial
About 34 million people served in the Soviet armed forces during the Second World War. The Russian Ministry of Defence has put millions of their records online for free. If your grandfather or great-grandfather served in the Red Army, there is a good chance a document about him is one search away.
The databases
- Pamyat Naroda (pamyat-naroda.ru, "Memory of the People") — the main portal: award records, loss reports, registration cards, burial records, unit war diaries and maps.
- OBD Memorial (obd-memorial.ru) — soldiers killed, died of wounds or missing in action, and former prisoners of war.
Both are free and need no account, but the interface is in Russian.
How to search
- Type the surname, first name and patronymic in Cyrillic. If you only know the English spelling, transliterate it back (Kuznetsov → Кузнецов) — Rodoslov can do this for you.
- Leave the birth year empty at first: it is often recorded inaccurately.
- Narrow down by the place of conscription (region, district military office) if you get too many results.
- Try variants: without the patronymic, with spelling errors, with е instead of ё.
What the records tell you
| Document | Information |
|---|---|
| Loss report (донесение о безвозвратных потерях) | date and place of death or disappearance, conscription office, often next of kin and their address |
| Award record (наградной лист) | birth year, rank, unit, description of the deed |
| POW card | place of birth, parent's name, camp — from captured German records |
| Burial record | place of the original grave and reburial |
The next-of-kin line ("mother — Anna Ivanovna, village Gorki") is a genealogical gold mine: it gives you the next generation and the exact village to search in parish records.
Reading the documents
Many documents are handwritten forms. Download the image and upload it to the assistant in Rodoslov — it transcribes and translates the record and adds the people it mentions to your tree.
If nothing is found
Not all documents are digitized. The originals are at the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence (TsAMO) in Podolsk, which accepts written requests. Also check regional Books of Memory and the Arolsen Archives for former prisoners and forced labourers.