The Names Database: A Year Online

By CYNTHIA WROCLAWSKI

Over seven million people worldwide have visited the site of the online Database (www.yadvashem.org) where visitors can search for names of family or friends who were murdered in the Holocaust, and then either check details already given or submit new Pages of Testimony. Over 150,000 additional names and biographical details have been added to the Database in the past year.

A Public Mission

A paramount objective of Yad Vashem in uploading of the Database is to raise awareness of Yad Vashem's mission to recover as many names as possible. "Time is running out," asserts Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate. "There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done and we are counting on the assistance of the public to take part in this sacred mission: to ensure no Holocaust victim will be forgotten to future generations."

The greatest challenge in reaching out to the public is the fact that survivors and other populations who can bear witness are reaching the ends of their lives. A large segment of this population may be not be computer literate; others are not aware that one is not required to be a blood relative of the victim in order to bear witness; nor must one know the entire life story of the victim, or even be Jewish. Some survivors even think that testimony they gave to other organizations is automatically incorporated in the Names Database.

Recognizing that a majority of the survivors need assistance in submitting names, Yad Vashem is counting on Jewish agencies, students, Holocaust centers, synagogues, survivor and next generation groups to spearhead names recovery programs and in their communities and schools. A resource guide with a comprehensive toolkit of practical materials for promoting and implementing grass-roots campaigns has been created is now online. Visit http://www1.yadvashem.org/names/whyCollect.htm

Packed with valuable resources and materials, this free guide enables Jewish communities to plan and implement meaningful memorial programs, names collection events and related activities around Yom Hashoah - Israel's national Holocaust Remembrance Day (this year, 25 April) and other significant dates in the Jewish calendar, such as 10th Tevet, 17th Tammuz, 9th Av, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

The guide is designed for use either by an individual or group, such as a synagogue, community center, welfare agency, survivor and next generation group, university or school. You can use it to call upon members of your community or organization to complete a "Page of Testimony" for each unregistered victim, or to volunteer to assist others with this urgent task.

To learn about how you can help the outreach effort, please contact names.outreach@yadvashem.org.il.

Reactions:

"It was an extremely moving experience to see my family history located in the Database… It is a wonderful thing you have done - not only keeping the memories alive, but also allowing those of us far away to look back into those memories that are quickly fading."

Orie H. Niedzviecki, Toronto, Canada

"I waited 60 years for this miracle to happen!"

Giselle Rosenfeld (84 years old) after reuniting with her cousin Isaac Sacks (78).Both survived the Holocaust and neither knew of any surviving family. Rosenfeld and Sacks are just two of the hundreds of survivors and their decedents who have discovered and reunited with long-lost family since the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names was uploaded to the Internet in November 2004.