Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, was established in 1953 by an act of the Israeli Knesset. Since its inception, Yad Vashem has been entrusted with documenting the history of the Jewish people during the Holocaust period, preserving the memory and story of each of the six million victims, and imparting the legacy of the Holocaust for generations to come through its archives, library, school, museums and recognition of the Righteous Among the Nations. Do You Know of a Holocaust Victim? Yad Vashem has issued a call to action to help register names of Holocaust victims in their Shoah Victims' Name Database. The Holocaust Center of Northern California is a participant in this grass-roots names recovery campaign.

Why Collect Names?

"And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (Yad Vashem), an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." (Isaiah 56:5)

Since 1955, Yad Vashem has worked to fulfill its mandate to preserve the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust by collecting their names, the ultimate representation of a person’s identity.

Millions of victims remain unidentified. Yad Vashem urgently calls upon Jewish communities to recover their names through a worldwide Names Recovery Project. Unless we assume collective responsibility for completing this vital mission, some of them may be lost forever. This is a race against time, before those who remember them are no longer with us.

How to Register Names

You can participate in registering names!

• Visit Yad Vashem Names Recovery site at http://www1.yadvashem.org/download/home_download_remembrance.html, where you can download testimony sheets or submit a testimony online.
• Call or visit HCNC, where blank testimony forms are available.
• Contact Rachel Isquith at risquith@hcnc.org if you are interested in volunteering in our local efforts to collect names.

Millions more victims may be forgotten forever, unless we recover their names today! You can ensure them a place in history by filling out Pages of Testimony, or by assisting others with this vital and urgent task.