Yad Vashem IDs 5 Million; AI Could Add 250,000

Yad Vashem announced it has identified the names of five million of the roughly six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, calling the milestone historic after seven decades of research. The effort draws on survivor Pages of Testimony, wartime and postwar records, archives, genealogical research and other sources to restore victims’ identities. About one million victims remain unnamed, and Yad Vashem says many will likely remain unknown, but it estimates AI and machine‑learning tools could recover as many as 250,000 additional names by analysing hundreds of millions of documents. The centre has developed its own AI‑powered software and is pursuing partnerships worldwide to accelerate identification. Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan called the work an urgent moral duty as the number of living Holocaust survivors—about 200,000 today—declines, and the Names Database has enabled individual family reunifications.