Until now, Holocaust memorialization projects have focused mainly
on the retrieval of the names of Shoah victims. These efforts have
culminated in Yad Vashem's three million name database. The International
Institute of Jewish Genealogy, in a vast, innovative, multi-year
project, proposes to mobilize genealogical science and skills to
recreate destroyed Jewish communities throughout Europe, primarily
by reconstructing the webs of kinship that bound the victims to
others living in their community (and beyond) on the eve of the
Holocaust. Family trees will be developed for the victims using
new technology that merges genealogical information from several
extensive databases now available on the Web and elsewhere. An exploratory
study is underway on three selected communities to test the feasibility
of the project design. Because of its scope, the project will be
conducted in collaboration with other groups of researchers. The
project director is Dr. Sallyann Amdur Sack.
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