In my view: Remembering six million, one by one, at online Hall of Names

In my view

by Gila Jedwab

Issue of March 19, 2010/ 4 Nissan 5770

‘He was shot in Vilna in July 1941. He was 19 years old.’ This is what greets you as you enter Yad Vashem’s Online Central Database of Names, otherwise known as the Hall of Names. It is a haunting utterance that, for me, brings the vast number of six million right down to a single human being. One line says it all.

My purpose in sharing this with you is to make you aware that, while precious survivors of the Holocaust remain among us, it is our privilege to accomplish an exceptional task. We need to help record the names of those killed by the Nazis.

We are a generation living right after a tragedy of biblical proportion. We sense the Holocaust acutely. It is unlike the Spanish Inquisition or even the destruction of the Temple, where we need to put effort into relating to the tragedy. The pain of the Holocaust is something we can readily feel or tap into. We are also a generation that lives in a time of widespread technological development. Those two factors together have given memory a natural evolution. Now, thanks to Yad Vashem, each of us has the ability to help record a page of testimony for each family member murdered by the Nazis.

Pages may be filled out online or mailed; it is pretty easy. A name and place of birth are all that is needed to record a page, and circumstance of death, if known. Additional lines ask for other information, but they are optional. If there are pictures, they can be submitted as well. All you need is a computer. Close to four million names have been recorded, so far.

I have sat down myself with survivors to assist them in filling out a page of testimony for each family member they lost. I helped my mother write a page for both her mother’s and her father’s entire families. My grandparents survived, thank G-d, but both died before recording the names.

I have noticed a common hesitation among survivors. Some find the process of recording a life extremely difficult. Elie Wiesel himself found it hard to write a page for his father (you can see this interview on YouTube titled: Elie Wiesel Commemorating his Father). He felt he could hardly do justice to his father’s life with several books, much less a single page. Only after being persuaded by Avner Shalev, the chairman of Yad Vashem, did Mr. Wiesel actually sit down at a computer and do this. Afterward, Mr. Wiesel urged anyone with access to a computer to do the same.

It is important to understand this reaction when you approach survivors. Be gentle but persistent. They will feel relieved after they do it. A tremendous weight will be lifted.

Think of how dear each of our names is to us. We love the sound of it; we automatically turn in the direction of hearing it. Inherent to the human condition is the basic desire for one’s name to be remembered. This intensifies when a life is taken abruptly.

Wiesel said: “What do we believe in? We believe in names. Therefore, we have the same names, actually. I have my grandfather’s name. My son has my father’s name...”

If we look to the Torah we see how careful Hashem is in recording names. There are countless pesukim (sentences) dedicated to the recounting of names. How special it must be for Hashem to see us take extraordinary measures to record these holy names, and emulate Him in doing so. It saddens me to think of the names that will go unrecorded, though I find comfort in the certainty that Hashem forgets no detail.

Please take a small step, start a conversation with a survivor and see if it becomes something that creates a final resting place for a name.

To fill out a page of testimony go to

www.yadvashem.org and follow the links to the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ names. Gila Jedwab is a dentist who lives in Woodmere. She can be reached at

giladmd@msn.com.