Interview: Head of Yad Vashem’s Archives Helps Survivors Unearth Their Own Buried Histories

From The Times of Israel:

Dr. Haim Gertner had just taken the reins as archives director at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center when Moshe Bar-Yuda approached him in early 2008. The Israeli Holocaust survivor wanted to see if Gertner could help unravel the mystery of his father’s wartime murder, some 66 years prior.

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Over his 11 years as archives director, Gertner has overseen the tripling of the size of Yad Vashem’s trove. Today, Yad Vashem maintains the largest Holocaust archive in the world with 204 million pages of documents, 500,000 photographs, 130,000 testimonies, 30,000 artifacts, and 11,000 pieces of art.

Over the past 15 years, Yad Vashem’s “Central Database for Shoah Victims’ Names” has dramatically expanded from 2.7 million to 4.7 million individuals, based upon information gathered through new technology that meticulously combed through 10 million different entries.

Read the Complete Interview with Dr. Haim Gertner

See Also: Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names

• About the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names 

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Interviews, News, Profiles