The Book of Names

Since its establishment, Yad Vashem has endeavored to gather the names of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust – one of its central missions. Yad Vashem’s Book of Names is the unique result of meticulous and painstaking work that commemorates 4,800,000 men, women and children whose details have been gathered and uncovered over the years – through Pages of Testimony, the location of various Holocaust-era documents, cooperation with memorial sites and more – which are memorialized in Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names.

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The Book of Names

The Book of Names actualizes the inconceivable number of Holocaust victims, and displays their names together with their dates of birth, hometowns and places of death – where known. The information is printed on pages measuring two meters high and one meter wide, with the details illuminated by a gentle beam of light that shines from between the pages. The massive dimensions of the Book of Names testify to the enormity of the collective and unimaginable loss for humanity as a whole and for the Jewish people in particular. The last pages of the book are empty, symbolizing the names that are yet to be retrieved, documented and commemorated, and which perhaps never will be.

Designer: Chanan De Lange

The Book of Names was produced with the generous support of Marilyn and Barry Rubenstein, USA.

Now on permanent display on the Mount of Remembrance.