Bill...where do I start?

[Nettie]

As the man I am about to research for a friend passed away this week, I cannot give his name, so I will call him Bill for the purposes of this thread.

Bill was born in 1922 in Poland, was taken prisoner by the Germans as a 17year old, spent torturous years in various concentration camps; Auschwitz(Poland), Flossenburg (Germany), Mauthausen (Austria) and Natzweiller-Struthof (France) before ending up at a displaced persons camp near Innsbruck (Austria) where he met his wife and my friend was born.

By 1949 they were on a ship headed for resettlement in Australia with embarkation given as Naples (Italy).

Given the number of countries involved between his birth - 1922 and arriving in Australia -1949 and that they were in the grips or after-effects of WW2 where do I start looking for records? I do have his parents names but no further details at this stage.

I have fewer details about his wife but at this time Bill is my priority.

Any sites / resources / hints would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[jorose]

In the records on his immigration to Australia, or in other records (family stories, etc.) is there any indication of where in Poland he was from?

You may also want to look for his incarceration here:
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Holocaust/

[Rena]

Maybe the International Red Cross in Geneva can help.   There's a link on this web page:

http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Museum-and-archives/Resources-for-researchers/Records-of-prisoners-of-war

[Nettie]

Thanks, jorose and rena, I will check out both links.

Jorose, his daughter (my friend) knows where he was born I just don't have the spelling for it at the moment.

I did forget to mention that he was Catholic and not Jewish. I know there are a lot of Jewish databases out there but I haven't found anything Catholic specific.

[nanny jan]

Hi,

There are some Catholic records from Poland on FamilySearch.org.

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list?page=1&countryId=1927187



Nanny Jan

[Nettie]

Thanks for that, Nanny Jan, I shall have a look.