BBC Feature - The Holocaust: Who are the missing million?

An emotional and though-provoking feature article that explores the efforts of Israel's Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem ("A Memorial and a Name"), who, since 1954, have been working to recover the names of all the victims, and to date has managed to identify some 4.7 million.

Dr Alexander Avram, director of Yad Vashem's Hall of Names and the Central Database of Shoah [Holocaust] Victims' Names states that "Every new name we can add to our database is a victory against the Nazis, against the intent of the Nazis to wipe out the Jewish people. Every new name is a small victory against oblivion."

 The Hall of Names is a haunting memorial to those who were lost during the Holocaust - a literal collection of names, facts and stories about individuals who perished.  A daunting task as much is based on memory and piecing together of information, and yet is highly symbolic in terms of what it represents.  The memorial and the efforts behind it beg the question of what makes naming such a powerful, symbolic, emotional and, especially in this case, a significant historical investment.

Details about the lives of millions of victims are held in Yad Vashem's Hall of Names.
"(The names are) stored in black boxes, each containing 300 pages - 9,000 boxes in all.
They are kept in climate-controlled conditions on shelves surrounding a central installation,
a 30ft-high conical lined with the faces of men, women and children who were murdered,
rising up towards the sky."

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