Putting a Face to Pages of Testimony
by Alexander Avraham

In summer 2000, an envelope arrived at Yad Vashem's Hall of Names containing 76 family photographs taken before WWII, affixed to a letter from Sarah Spevak of Petach Tikvah. The letter explained that the pictures were of members of a family who lived in Poland prior to the war. Spevak was not familiar with the majority of the faces in the pictures, nor was she able to decipher the few incomprehensible scribbles, which appeared on the reverse side of a number of them. Therefore, and under the assumption that some of the family members perished in the Holocaust, she sent the pictures to Yad Vashem for permanent safekeeping, in memory of the victims.

This was not the first time that Yad Vashem received such photographs and then proceeded to attempt to discern the story behind them. Indeed, a certain degree of success was reached in this case, as well.

A very precise inspection clarified that the scribbles that appeared on the back of some of the pictures were actually inscriptions in Yiddish and Polish of names of individuals and places. A brief search in the computer database revealed that 10 of the names that appear on the backs of the pictures corresponded to Pages of Testimony already stored at Yad Vashem. With that knowledge and information, the Hall of Names' staff was gradually able to piece together an extensive network of family connections.

According to records, in 1956, during Yad Vashem's first campaign to gather names of Holocaust victims, Spevak’s parents registered and commemorated their parents, brothers, and cousins, who were killed in the Holocaust, by filling in Pages of Testimony and sending the Pages to Yad Vashem. At the time, they did not attach the photographs of their family members to the actual Pages of Testimony, nor did they tell their children about their personal tragedy, thereby preventing their children from being able to name the people in the photographs several decades later. Only now, after much investigation, have the names recorded in the Pages of Testimony been supplemented by the faces contained in the family photographs.

During the Holocaust it was often dangerous to rescue a photograph, and after the Holocaust the task of locating and identifying pictures was very difficult. As of today there are over 100,000 pictures contained in the vast reservoir of Pages of Testimony and each picture is an element in someone’s life story. These photos provide an important visual dimension to the lost lives of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Together, they form a diverse mosaic and document the victims’ identities, thus restoring at least this aspect of their birthright.

At present, the Hall of Names is embarking upon a unique campaign in which all the pictures affixed to Pages of Testimony will be scanned for the purpose of their preservation and in order to allow for their easy access within Yad Vashem's general computer system. A large number of these pictures will be used for educational purposes, as well as for exhibition in the new Museum and in the new Hall of Names, both currently under construction at Yad Vashem.

As part of the International Campaign for the Collection and Commemoration of Holocaust Victims' Names, Yad Vashem appeals to all those who have or are able to locate pictures of Holocaust victims, to send them to the Hall of Names along with Pages of Testimony or as appendages to Pages of Testimony already sent, in the continued effort and obligation to preserve a legacy nearly lost.

The author is the Director of the Hall of Names