Newsletter Text

Names Recovery Campaign: In Partnership with Yad Vashem

Dear

As the generation of Holocaust survivors rapidly dwindles, the memory of millions of Holocaust victims will slip into oblivion unless we record their names for future generations to remember. On behalf of Yad Vashem, I am writing to request that you join the International Campaign to Recover Names and Identities of Holocaust Victims. Please help us ensure that no Holocaust victim is forgotten .

Synagogues, Jewish organizations and communities: please encourage your members to join the campaign. Post the text below in newsletters, on websites, bulletin boards or any other communal forum. Please ask your Rabbis to make announcements and put Pages of Testimony forms for registering Holocaust victims who perished, in their synagogues (details provided below).

URGENT CALL TO ACTION FROM YAD VASHEM:

REGISTER NAMES OF HOLOCAUST VICTIMS TODAY

Ensure that no one is forgotten

In fulfilling its mandate to memorialize and preserve the legacy of each individual Jew who died at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators, Yad Vashem has been collecting “Pages of Testimony” since the mid 1950’s. Submitted by survivors, relatives or friends of victims, Pages of Testimony are preserved in the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. In November 2004, the Page of Testimony collection was integrated into the Central Database of Shoah Victims Names where brief histories and photographs of over three million Holocaust victims may be accessed online. A revolutionary milestone in Holocaust remembrance and learning, this online resource provides the opportunity to search for names, photographs and brief histories, of over three million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The Database also allows users to submit names, photos and documentation online .

The names and life stories of millions more victims are in danger of being forgotten. If you know of a Holocaust victim please fill out a Page of Testimony in their memory, or assist survivors and others who know of Holocaust victims to do so .

Please search the site today, submit unrecorded names and pictures, and help ensure that no Holocaust victim is forgotten.

Names may be registered in two ways:

1. Online via the website www.yadvashem.org - Enter the Database from the home page and click 4 "Submit Additional Names" on the search page .
2. Via a special form for registering Holocaust victims, known as a Page of Testimony. Forms and instructions may be downloaded from the site and printed or photocopied for multiple submissions at: http://www1.yadvashem.org/download/index_download.html

Forms may also be requested from Yad Vashem: via e-mail: central.database@yadvashem.org.il ,

Tel: +972-2-6443582 or Fax: +972-2-6443579  

Testimonies given to organizations other than Yad Vashem are NOT in the Central Database .

(Please pass this message on to your family, friends and acquaintances)

For a free resource guide to initiate a campaign to recover names of Holocaust victims in your community or school and other promotional materials contact: names.outreach@yadvashem.org.il

On behalf of Yad Vashem, thank you for helping to ensure that every Holocaust victim has a place in our collective memory.