Yad Vashem has recovered the names of 5 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust
Yad Vashem in Jerusalem has recovered the names of five million Jews of the six million murdered in the Holocaust.
This milestone marks seven decades of work and is at the heart of Yad Vashem’s mission – recovering the identities and memory of those whom the Nazis sought to erase. This mission is more important than ever, as the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles and the world will soon be without first-hand witnesses.
There are still an estimated one million names of Jewish victims who are unknown and many will likely remain so forever. Though with new technologies like AI and machine learning, Yad Vashem’s teams aim to recover as many names and personal details as possible by analysing hundreds of millions of archival documents that were previously too extensive to research manually. With these tools, an estimated 250,000 names could still be recovered.
The names are compiled in Yad Vashem’s Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, which is accessible online in six languages. By using variants of names and places and with the help of specially-developed algorithms, the database also includes hundreds of thousands of ‘personal files’ aggregated from archival sources that tell about the lives and the fate of the individual victims. Over the years, the database has helped countless families commemorate loved ones and discover and reunite with lost relatives.
“Reaching five million names is both a milestone and a reminder of our unfinished obligation,” said Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan. “Behind each name is a life that mattered – a child who never grew up, a parent who never came home, a voice that was silenced forever. It is our moral duty to ensure that every victim is remembered so that no one will be left behind in the darkness of anonymity.”
The achievement of 5 million names will be presented in detail at a seminar at Yad Vashem on Nov. 6 and will headline an event hosted by the Yad Vashem USA Foundation in New York on Nov. 9.
