The residents’ registration cards show exactly when a person moved to a place and from where (first column), their current address with street and house number (second column), and when they moved away and to where (third column). The previous place of residence was usually the place of birth, or the place where the person had previously been required to perform forced labor.
Karol Stasiak’s residents’ registration card, for example, shows that he was in Neubeckum, Westphalia prior to April 1940, and was transferred to Hanover in June 1943. In the three years between these dates, although he stayed in in the same locality, he changed his address three times, but he always stayed in accommodation provided by the German National Railway (Reichsbahn). The card does not indicate where the residents’ registration card was issued, since it does not state the town or village in which he was required to perform forced labor between 1940 and 1943. Other documents relating to him, which are held in the Arolsen Archives, provide an answer to this question: The barracks belonging to the Reichsbahn where he had to stay were in Bielefeld.