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Lviv Ghetto Mapping Project
Investigators
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Waitman Wade Beorn
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Taras Nazaruk
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Drew MacQueen
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Chris Gist
In 2017, Dr. Beorn discovered in the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum a list of over 17,000 names of Lviv ghetto inhabitants culled from a variety of sources, predominantly ghetto work cards and information from companies using Jewish slave labor. This source contains a wealth of demographic and spatial data including addresses and "employers."
This selection out of 17, 891 shows Jews forced to work for the Lviv Botanical Gardens along with demographic and spatial data.
As part of his first foray into GIS work, Dr. Beorn was interested in mapping these individuals as a start. With the help of Chris and Drew from the UVA Scholar's Lab and the Center in Lviv, the team was able to translate Nazi-era street names to modern street names. In addition, Chris and Drew were able to create a method for identifying street locations even if the building no longer exists today. This was a critical intervention. We are currently still at a draft stage of research and visualization. Drew created an online portal that allows some search capability and also shows density of housing.
Initial GIS by Drew MacQueen visualizing ghetto work card list
One example of the kinds of historical questions that can be raised from mapping appeared when Dr. Beorn overlaid a geo-referenced Nazi map for the creation of the ghetto onto the GIS of ghetto inhabitants. There are interesting clusters of housing in areas outside the planned ghetto area. This raises the question of how and why these groups appeared as well as asking what time period these sources were possibly created given the evolution of the eventual ghetto (which would be in the northern section)
Dr. Beorn's overlay showing ghetto residents and Nazi plans. The Nazis in Lviv designated area "I" as the final ghetto location.
Future plans for this data include adding places of employment and beginning to examine movement of workers back and forth from the ghetto to workplaces as well as areas vital to Jewish life in the city (synagogues, markets, Jewish Council and other administrative offices, etc.)