The Hall of Names is a repository for the names of millions of
Shoah
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
victims at
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...
, the Holocaust Remembrance Authority in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
. These names also appear in the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names on the Yad Vashem website. Most of the names are commemorated on
Pages of Testimony
A Page of Testimony is a form issued by Yad Vashem (יד ושם) that asks for information about a Jewish victim of the Holocaust. Over 4.3 million Pages of Testimony have been submitted to Yad Vashem, beginning in the 1950s. Most of these, as we ...
, with the rest gleaned from Holocaust-era lists, such as those of
ghetto
A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...
and
concentration camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
prisoners, Jews whose property was confiscated by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and its allies, Jews deported on
transports, victims of
death marches
A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Conven ...
, etc.
History
In 1968, a "Names Room" was established at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, in which original Pages of Testimony were stored in alphabetical order. In 1977, the Hall of Names building was opened at Yad Vashem. In the 1980s, Yad Vashem copied onto
microfilm
Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...
some one million Pages of Testimony in order to improve their accessibility to the general public as well as to provide backup for the Pages. With the beginning of the large wave of
immigration of Jews from the Former Soviet Union in the 1990s, the rate at which Pages of Testimony were submitted doubled to some 3,000 per month. In 1990, Yad Vashem began to glean names of Holocaust victims from deportation lists as well as camp and ghetto prisoner records, prepared by the Nazis and their allies. The 1990s also saw the launch of the project to digitize the names of Holocaust victims found in the Hall of Names. During the Names Recovery Campaign in 1999 under the auspices of Israeli President
Ezer Weizman
Ezer Weizman (; he, עֵזֶר וַיצְמָן ''Ezer Vaytsman''; 15 June 1924 – 24 April 2005) was the seventh President of Israel, first elected in 1993 and re-elected in 1998. Before the presidency, Weizman was commander of the Israeli Ai ...
, 380,000 Pages of Testimony were submitted in one year alone, and another 70,000 in the year 2000. That same year, a digitized database of Holocaust victims' names was created, and in 2004 the Central Database of Holocaust Victims' Names was launched on the Yad Vashem website.
With the dedication of the new Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem in 2005, the Hall of Names was moved to that location. As of 2015, more than 4.5 million names of Holocaust victims are stored in the Hall of Names.
Structure
The Hall of Names consists of a circular upper walkway for visitors. The space above and below the walkway is constructed of two 10-meter cones facing away from each other and connected at their widest point. The upper cone bears copies of some 600 photographs and fragments of Pages of Testimony of Holocaust victims. The downward facing cone reaches into the mountain bedrock, at the base of which a pool of water reflects the images in the upper cone.
Opposite to the entrance of the Hall of Names is an opening leading to a computer center for searching for names of Holocaust victims. On the walls surrounding the walkway are shelves bearing files in which the original Pages of Testimony are stored. These Pages are not accessible to the general public, but may be viewed in the computer center or online at the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names on the Yad Vashem website.
See also
*
The Central Data Base of Shoah Victims' Names
External links
Hall of Names on the Yad Vashem website
References
{{coord missing, Israel
Yad Vashem