AI helps recover the identities of five million Holocaust victims whose names were lost to history

More than five million of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust have now been identified, according to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem (via Reuters). The announcement marks a major milestone in a decades-long effort to recover the identities of those killed by the Nazis during World War II.

Yad Vashem said that while around one million victims remain unknown, advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning could help uncover as many as 250,000 additional names by analyzing hundreds of millions of archival documents that were previously too vast to process manually.

"Behind each name is a life that mattered"

With the number of Holocaust survivors rapidly dwindling, Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan called the achievement both a breakthrough and a solemn reminder of an unfinished mission.

"Behind each name is a life that mattered, a child who never grew up, a parent who never came home, a voice that was silenced forever," Dayan said. "It is our moral duty to ensure that every victim is remembered so that no one is left behind in the darkness of anonymity."

Yad Vashem first announced the use of its AI-powered identification system in 2024, allowing researchers to cross-reference testimony, historical documents, photographs, and film footage to identify previously unknown victims. At the time, the center had traced 4.9 million names.

Today, the growing online Yad Vashem database, available in six languages, includes personal records, testimonies, and biographical details that have helped families reconnect with their past and commemorate relatives who were left without graves.

"The Nazis sought not only to murder them but to erase their existence," said Alexander Avram, director of Yad Vashem's Hall of Names. "By identifying five million names, we are restoring their human identities and ensuring that their memory endures."