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Millions Reconnect @ yadvashem.org
by Leah Goldstein
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Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (left) searches Yad Vashem’s
online Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names in the
Prime Minister’s Bureau, accompanied by Chairman of the
Directorate Avner Shalev |
“Today I
became a grandson. Today I became a nephew. Across time and
history, www.yadvashem.org reminds us… how an attempt at mass
murder and genocide can be undone by the collaborative power of
memory.”
Tom Teicholz, film producer, author and journalist,
The Jewish
Journal of Greater Los Angeles
Now available anywhere in the
world at www.yadvashem.org, Yad Vashem’s Central Database of
Shoah Victims’ Names has generated an overwhelming response.
Of the millions who have visited the website—from 162
countries—since the Database was launched, thousands of people
have written to Yad Vashem to express their admiration and
appreciation for this vital step in Holocaust remembrance. Some,
with personal connections to the Shoah, have reconnected
with the past; others have discovered a part of their history they
did not know. Many have simply been overwhelmed the experience of
“meeting the victims” and, in the words of one newspaper
editorial, “seeing them look back at us.”
Launching the Database at an
international press conference on 22 November 2004, Chairman of
the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev announced the start of an
International 11th Hour Campaign aimed at garnering
more names of victims. “This is a race against time,” he
explained. “We must record as many names as possible before the
generation that best remembers them is no longer with us. We call
on families around the globe to help honor the memories of their
ancestors by recording their names.”
Simone Veil, Holocaust survivor,
former President of the European Parliament and current President
of the Fondation pour la Memoire de la Shoah (France), explained
the importance of the Database in a special taped message: “For
the first time, this Database is accessible to everybody… this is
really wonderful since people will be able to find out about
relatives who disappeared, and also—most importantly—the memory of
those millions of assassinated Jews will be immortalized.”
The Names Database has three main
functions: it enables visitors to search for any of the close to
three million names of Shoah victims digitized to date; it
allows users to submit new Pages of Testimony—special forms
containing biographical details of individual victims—as well as
photographs for those victims as yet unrecorded; and it provides
educational material about the Holocaust through the “Stories
Behind the Names” feature.
“I have found a part of
my life that was lost”
-Response to uploading of
Shoah Victims’ Names Database
Two-thirds of the names in the Database were obtained from the
more than two million Pages of Testimony submitted to Yad Vashem
over the past 50 years, nearly all of which have now been
digitized. Other names have been gleaned from additional
computerized lists, including deportation, camp and ghetto
records. Every name in the Database is accompanied by a short
biography of the victim, as well as links to further information
about the places and events connected to his/her life and death.
Users can also conduct further research about that particular
family, or access other Pages of Testimony completed by the same
submitter.
Recently completing a Page of Testimony for his father, Shlomo
Wiesel, Nobel Laureate Professor Elie Wiesel commented: “This
Database creates a link not only with the dead but also among the
living… It can only bring a heightened awareness and a deepened
sense of remembrance.”
After speaking during the
conference, Minister of Education, Culture and Sport Limor Livnat
performed a search for her relatives. Also present were: Serge
Klarsfeld, a pioneer in the effort to document names of Holocaust
victims and whose groundbreaking lists have been incorporated into
the Database; Yossie Hollander, the son of Holocaust survivors,
hi-tech entrepreneur and supporter of the project; and
representatives of the Yad Vashem’s strategic technological
partners in the project, Strauss Strategy, IBM Global Services,
Netvision and IDEA. The uploading of the Database was made
possible by the generous support of the Victim List Project of the
Swiss Banks Settlement, under the supervision of the Honorable
Edward R. Korman, Chief Judge of the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of New York, and Yossie Hollander. At the
conference, Hollander recalled how
he was named after his
grandfather who perished in the Holocaust. “Helping Yad Vashem
create the Names project has been my personal way of remembering
him,” he said. “For the past 60 years the memory of the Holocaust
has been carried by the survivors. They are not getting any
younger. It is now time for the next
generation to carry this load.”
In a specially-recorded message,
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged Jews around the world to
join the effort to document the names of victims: “We
should use this technology in the service of memory to plant their
images in our own hearts, and in the hearts of our children and
grandchildren. This is the least we can do for them.”
Partners in Promotion
An unprecedented
number of media outlets, businesses and organizations in Israel
and around the world have joined Yad Vashem in promoting the
Names’ Database and assisting in the International 11th Hour
Campaign aimed at garnering as many names of Shoah victims
as possible. Among these are: the United Jewish Communities, the
Jewish Education Service of North America, the Orthodox Union, the
World Union of Jewish Students, the National Fund of the Republic
of Austria and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.
In Great Britain, Yad Vashem and
Tribe (Young United Synagogue) are
partnering on the innovative “Sixty Days for Sixty Years”
educational project, marking 60 years since the end of the
Holocaust. From 25 January to 25 March 2005 (60 days),
participants—teenagers, students and adults—will study various
topics about Jewish identity in the modern age,
including the Holocaust, each in the memory of a specific individual Shoah victim. Each
participant will receive a special book comprising contributions
from leading Jewish thinkers, including Holocaust survivor and
Nobel Laureate Professor Elie Wiesel, the Chief
Rabbi of the United
Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth Dr Jonathan Sacks,
and renowned Holocaust historian, Sir Martin Gilbert.
Various communities
from around the world will be ‘twinned’ with European Jewish
communities that were obliterated in the Shoah, in an
effort to ‘rebuild and reclaim’ them from the Nazi destruction.
Participants will be
encouraged to access the Central Database of Shoah Victims’
Names on the Yad Vashem website to investigate the lives of those
individuals whose memories they will be commemorating. For more
information, and to participate in this groundbreaking project,
please e-mail
60for60@tribeuk.com
Yad Vashem is grateful to all those
organizations and individuals who have so far offered their
assistance in promoting the Database and the campaign to gather
more names. To join this vital international effort, please e-mail
names.outreach@yadvashem.org.il
Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |
