JRI-Poland and Yad Vashem Team Up to Retrieve the Names of Thousands of Jews Who Perished in the Holocaust

JRI-Poland, a global collective of volunteer genealogists, and Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, have partnered together for the daunting task of uncovering the identities of thousands of Jews known to have perished during the Holocaust, and who are mentioned without names in other victims’ Pages of Testimony. This includes reference to thousands of children who remain unidentified.

Yad Vashem has collected over 4.9 million victims' names, of which more than 2.8 million have Pages of Testimony that tell brief personal stories, including mention of members of their family. However, tens of thousands of these pages include references to people whose names were unknown to the original submitters.

The names of children have been particularly elusive to Yad Vashem’s identification efforts. JRI-Poland has already helped Yad Vashem locate the names of dozens of child victims, and the project will expand as additional Polish records become publicly available.

For 30 years, JRI-Poland has been collecting Jewish birth, marriage, death, census and other surviving records to help document the history of the largest Jewish community in pre-war Europe. The JRI-Poland.org database is accessible to the public free of charge.

This new collaboration will allow these Holocaust victims to be properly memorialized and included in Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names which is accessible in multiple languages on Yad Vashem's website and, notably, in the Hall of Names and the Book of Names.

Alexander Avram, Director of Yad Vashem's Hall of Names in Jerusalem, said: "A central mission at Yad Vashem is to preserve the memory of the Holocaust victims by collecting their names. But many pages in the Book of Names remain empty. Through partnerships like this with JRI-Poland we hope to fill those pages in the years to come and to offer the victims a long-overdue memorialization."

Michael Tobias, Co-Founder and Board Member of JRI-Poland, said: “When I heard Alexander Avram a few years ago mention the thousands of unnamed victims in the Yad Vashem Central Database, I was convinced that the data JRI-Poland had compiled over the years could be used to help identify them. After two years of analysis this has proven to be correct, and I am delighted that we are able to contribute to this important project.”

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, serves as the global epicenter of Holocaust commemoration, research, education, and documentation. Through its groundbreaking exhibitions, educational initiatives, research projects and digital resources, Yad Vashem ensures that the memory of the Holocaust continues to inspire and educate future generations.

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