fbpx

Yad Vashem has identified 4 million Shoah victims

Yad Vashem says it has identified two-thirds of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Israel\'s Holocaust Martyrs\' and Heroes\' Remembrance Authority in the last decade has added about 1.4 million names to its central database of Shoah victims’ names, bringing the total number of names registered to about 4 million, according to a statement released Tuesday. “One of Yad Vashem\'s central missions since its foundation, the recovery of each and every victim\'s name and personal story, has resulted in relentless efforts to restore the names and identities of as many of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices as possible,\" said Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev. \"We will continue our efforts to recover the unknown names, and by harnessing technology in the service of memory, we are able to share their names with the world.”
[additional-authors]
December 22, 2010

Yad Vashem says it has identified two-thirds of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in the last decade has added about 1.4 million names to its central database of Shoah victims’ names, bringing the total number of names registered to about 4 million, according to a statement released Tuesday.

“One of Yad Vashem’s central missions since its foundation, the recovery of each and every victim’s name and personal story, has resulted in relentless efforts to restore the names and identities of as many of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices as possible,” said Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev. “We will continue our efforts to recover the unknown names, and by harnessing technology in the service of memory, we are able to share their names with the world.”

In 2004, Yad Vashem launched the central database of Shoah victims’ names onto its website with 3 million names. Names are recovered via Pages of Testimony, special forms filled out in memory of the victims by those who remember them, and by combing archival lists and documentation for names.

Of the 4 million names now known, some 2.2 million come from Pages of Testimony and the remainder from various archival sources and postwar commemoration projects.

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Losing One’s True North

Normally we say goodbye to our loved ones, as they fly back to their normal lives, but what is normal about the lives they fly back to at this moment in time?

Peter Beinart’s Rapture

Instead of correcting some of the hyperbolic anti-Israel “reporting” that has so blurred people’s capacity to know what is going on, he pours fuel on the flames of ignorance and perpetuates a rhetoric that lays blame for the whole conflict primarily or solely on Israel.

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.