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Online This
Summer: Shoah Victims’ Names Database
Gathering Data
from Every Source
by Zvi Bernhardt and Nadia Kahan
Holocaust
Education Online
When the Central Database of Shoah
Victims’ Names is launched onto the Internet this summer, it will
mark a significant milestone in over 50 years of intensive work at
Yad Vashem, and cooperation with international governmental,
voluntary and academic institutions.
To make the database as comprehensive
as possible, Yad Vashem has sought to unify the community of those
committed to memorializing Holocaust victims worldwide. Using the
database and tools developed for the Hall of Names, hundreds of
lists are being incorporated into the database, making it the most
extensive such list available. This momentous task is being
assisted by businessman and high-tech entrepreneur Yossi Hollander
and other individuals.
The reason for uploading the database
onto the Internet is multidimensional: to give free unhindered
access to all the data digitized so far, ensuring the lasting
commemoration of those victims for whom we already have some
information; to enable every family to check if their relatives
are already commemorated in the Hall of Names and if not, to allow
the direct submission of as yet unrecorded victims’ names via
online Pages of Testimony; to correct or supplement already
existing data; and to enable Holocaust education and commemoration
to reach the farthest corners of the world. The database will thus
become an interactive platform for the public to join Yad Vashem
in creating as complete a memorial as possible to each and every
individual Holocaust victim. Chief Judge Edward Korman—responsible
for the distribution of funds from the Holocaust Victim Assets
Litigation against Swiss Banks—us supporting this vital endeavor
as part of an extensive list of all the victims of the Nazi
regime.
Although uploading the database at
this stage is a notable watershed, it by no means signals the
culmination of the project. The process of collecting and
computerizing names continues.
Pages of Testimony
From its
inception, Yad Vashem realized that the one of the best resources
for gathering information about and memorializing individual
Holocaust victims were Pages of Testimony. Over two million
personal accounts of family and friends who perished during the
Shoah recorded on Pages of Testimony have been digitized so far,
forming the core of the database. However, the Pages alone do not
memorialize all the victims, institutions and organizations—the
Jewish world—destroyed in the Holocaust.
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The Stryj Megilah |
Megilot and
Yizkor Books
After the end of
WWII, many groups of survivors tried to gather victims’ names from
their former communities. Several published yizkor (memorial)
books; Yad Vashem’s library has some 1,200 of these books—the
largest such collection in the world. Other communities wanted to
express the memory of their loved ones artistically, and created
traditional megilot (memorial scrolls), which were also frequently
deposited for safekeeping in Yad Vashem. With the help of
volunteers, Yad Vashem has digitally recorded some 300,000 names
which appear in these valuable sources.
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International Fencing
Association membership card of Hungarian Olympic Fencing
Champion Attila Petschauer, who was murdered in 1943 in a
Hungarian labor camp in the Ukraine |
The General
Public
In addition to
Pages of Testimony, the public is encouraged to provide photos and
personal documentation (birth certificates, diaries, works of art,
cards from ghettos and camps, etc.) of those who perished. These
may then be scanned and added to the information that already
exists for that particular victim.
Archival Lists
In a 1997 survey,
Yad Vashem found over 10,000 different lists in its archives,
amounting to many millions of names. Since then, Yad Vashem has
made every effort to digitize these names, with the help of
volunteers and members of the JewishGen organization. There is
still much to be done to complete this task, and we hope to find
the resources to accelerate and complete this process as quickly
as possible.
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This photo from
the Auschwitz Museum, sent to Yad Vashem by a private
individual, shows the suitcase of Petr Eisler, whose name
appears in the Theresienstadt list. |
International
Cooperation
Among the
international bodies Yad Vashem is cooperating with is Terezinska
Iniciativa in the Czech Republic, an institution dedicated to
researching and memorializing Holocaust victims who passed through
Theresienstadt. Yad Vashem has both provided names and received
digitized versions of original lists of victims made in the camp.
Serge Klarsfeld
has contributed to the database a digitized copy of the list of
Jews deported from France. He also helped finance the ongoing
effort to computerize the Nevek (names) series—lists of Hungarian
Jews already in its archives.
Joachim Weingart
(1895-1942), Flowers, oil on canvas. Weingart’s name appears on
the Klarsfeld list. Images of his painting, and information about
him from an art catalogue have been entered into the database.
The DOW—Archives
of the Austrian resistance movement—has compiled a list of
Austrian Jews deported by the Nazi regime, which has been added to
the database.
These are only a few of the projects
and organizations with which Yad Vashem is cooperating, and whose
computerized lists have been or will be incorporated into its
central database. Additional projects include the Museum of
Genocide Victims in Belgrad (list of victims from Yugoslavia), the
Lodz Ghetto census, listings of camp inmates from Mauthausen,
Dutch Oorlogsgravenstichting (deportees from the Netherlands),
Bundesarchiv Germany (victims from western Germany), Dr. Rita
Meyhoefer from the Freie Universitaet Berlin (victims from
Berlin), Thessaloniki Jewish Community (victims from Thessaloniki),
Bergen-Belsen memorial (camp inmates from Bergen-Belsen),
Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv (refugees rejected on the Swiss
border), Daniel Kazez and the The Czestochowa-Radomsko Area
Research Group.
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Joachim Weingart (1895-1942),
Flowers, oil on canvas. Weingart's name appears in the
Klarsfeld list. Images of his paintings and information about
him from an art catalogue have been entered into the database.
Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
Gift of Caroline and Joseph
Gruss, New York.
On permanent loan to Yad
Vashem. |
Funding digitization worldwide
Yad Vashem has given small grants to
organizations dedicated to digitizing Shoah victims’ names,
with the generous help of the Zantker Charitable Foundation, USA.
One of these projects is the Slovakia Holocaust Jewish Names
Project, which is digitizing names based on archival material in
Slovakia. Among others are the Lithuanian Names project, the
Latvian Names project and the Names project for Estonia.
Zvi
Bernhardt is Deputy Director of Reference and Information Services
and Head of Data Processing in the Hall of Names, and Nadia Kahan
is Director of Reference and Information Services
Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |
