Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, is leading a project to compile the names of as many Jewish Holocaust victims as possible. Gil Cohen Magen / Xinhua via Getty Images
SocietyTechnology IsraelAI Helps Restore Historic Lost Identities
Researchers in Israel have now identified five million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, using artificial intelligence to recover names once thought lost to time.
“Behind each name is a life that mattered, a voice that was silenced forever,” said Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem. “It is our moral duty to ensure that no one remains in the darkness of anonymity.”
The project, which has been underway since the 1950s, received a major boost when Yad Vashem developed software that cross-references testimonies, archives, and international records to uncover missing identities. Five million names are now preserved in an online database in six languages, along with biographical Pages of Testimony for 2.8 million victims. With AI support, at least 250,000 more names could be recovered, although around one million remain unknown. As the last survivors reach their 80s and 90s, researchers say this work is a race against time to restore every identity the Nazis tried to erase.
