X

Holocaust victims honored on Yad Vashem's digital remembrance wall

It's an emotional site, but an important reminder.

Shelby Brown Editor II
Shelby Brown (she/her/hers) is an editor for CNET's services team. She covers tips and tricks for apps, operating systems and devices, as well as mobile gaming and Apple Arcade news. Shelby also oversees Tech Tips coverage. Before joining CNET, she covered app news for Download.com and served as a freelancer for Louisville.com.
Credentials
  • She received the Renau Writing Scholarship in 2016 from the University of Louisville's communication department.
Shelby Brown
2 min read
gettyimages-1124531685

Yad Vashem teamed up with Facebook for its Holocaust remembrance wall.

Ian Forsyth/ Getty Images

Leo Bubi Krausz lived in Nitra, Czechoslovakia, before World War II broke out and was killed in Auschwitz. He was one of the 6 million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered by the Nazi Germans and their collaborators during the Holocaust. Leo's picture was randomly matched with my name on Yad Vashem's IRemember Wall website, which serves to commemorate victims of the Holocaust. 

Monday, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day, brought more than 70,000 people to the IRemember Wall. This year, Facebook International is teaming up with Yad Vashem to encourage Holocaust awareness. The partnership will make the IRemember Wall available in six languages -- English, Hebrew, French, Spanish, German and Russian -- for the first time, according to a release.

"This project will create a meaningful opportunity for people all over the world to remember the victims of the Holocaust in their own language," Iris Rosenberg, director of Yad Vashem's communications division, said in the release. "By partnering together with Facebook International, we are able to reach a wider international audience, which is crucial in keeping the memory of the Jewish victims alive and the meanings of the Holocaust relevant to the challenges of today's reality."

iremember-valentina
Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center

When you access the site, a prompt pops up for you to enter your name and country. Click submit and the site matches you with someone who was murdered in the Holocaust. You can read about the person's life from accounts given by their surviving relatives. When you go back to the main page of photos, the person you mere matched with's image will read "[your name] from [your country] remembers [their name]."

The site lets you share the story and image of the person you were paired with on social media so their story isn't lost. The site includes the names of 4.8 million victims of the Holocaust. In addition, after being matched, visitors can add more names of Holocaust victims from the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names to the IRemember Wall. 

"I am so grateful for all that Yad Vashem does to honor the victims of the Holocaust, including this incredible IRemember Wall project," Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, said in the release. "Facebook is honored to be a part of the project and help tell the story of the millions of women, men and children murdered by the Nazis and those who were complicit in their murder. They deserve to be remembered so this never happens again."

Watch this: Recalling Holocaust horrors