December 22, 2010
Yad Vashem has identified 4 million Shoah victims
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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.
