Google Announces Collaboration With Israeli Museum To Create Online Holocaust Archive

To coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), Google and Yad Vashem, an Israeli museum established in the 1950s to preserve the memory of Holocaust victims, announced a collaboration to create a publicly available online archive of Holocaust documents from around the world.

Yossi Matias, director of research and development for Google Israel, was quoted in Yad Vashem's press release mentioning the desire to share and preserve memories,

For some time, Google has been working to bring the world's historical and cultural heritage online. The Internet offers a great opportunity to preserve and share important materials stored in archives.

The first stage of the project has already been completed, with 130,000 photographs already uploaded and viewable at full resolution on Yad Vashem's website.

The project offers benefits for both users and the museum. The information held by the museum on a hilltop in Jerusalem will finally be widely accessible. Yad Vashem also hopes that the public will help fill in gaps in their documentation. In addition to the ability to search and view the documents, users are encouraged to add their own materials in the "share your thoughts" section.

The project was unveiled on January 27, designated as the annual day of remembrance for the six million Holocaust victims. The day marks the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by Soviet forces.

Comments

[StopFraudEsq]

06:43 PM on 01/31/2011

I'm guessing due to lag times, the Palestinian Ethic Cleansing or Apartheid Collaboration will come in 2020?

The holocaust, while real and awful, is something of a dangerous obsession if not a religion of its own. It has trapped the minds of Israelis, for example, and allows them (in their minds) to do whatever they want.

We enable them too.

I wonder if black Americans will get a Slavery Museum? Can you believe they don't have one yet? You wonder about the years of friction between African Americans and Jews? I wonder if Jews will admit their heavy role in the Middle Passage. I wonder if Israel will recognize the Armenian Holocaust? They haven't yet, even though it's a "fact".

There's facts and there's politics. This collaboration, while nice, was a result of politics. The many facts other facts that touch on human suffering are being lost.

[LCLA]

05:24 PM on 01/30/2011

An excellent project.
I've been reading The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski, and it eloquently reminds me of why we must never forget.

[juangault]

06:57 PM on 01/29/2011

Why is it, that since I was a toddler in jr. high, that I never heard a reason WHY the Germans were so hostile to the Jews.

[blev28]

09:32 PM on 01/29/2011

antisemitism has no "reason", its just pure hate

[Leo Bloom]

12:23 AM on 01/30/2011

For the same reason Turks were hostile to Armenians.

[shastaman]

12:09 AM on 01/29/2011

Why on earth is the " holocaust " museum located at the U S mint in D C

[blev28]

09:33 PM on 01/29/2011

um, it isnt...

You probably found the wrong address

[Dale McGill]

07:41 PM on 01/28/2011

There is a holocaust going on right now that nobody would believe. Look up Targeted Individuals. Gangstalking.

[rajean1]

08:20 PM on 01/28/2011

As soon as you lose the gang of people stalking you, take a moment to look up the word holocaust.

[ladyearth]

04:35 PM on 01/28/2011

Our Jewish brothers' and sisters' suffering is a reminder to all of us of what man can do and has done to other men. It behooves each one of us to remember and to allow our actions to flow from a place of peace and kindness and love for one another.

[Jeremy Urbach]

07:39 PM on 01/28/2011

Lots of filthy anti-semitic rhetoric in your little rant. Go away..we dont need your racism here.

[Aziat]

07:47 PM on 01/28/2011

antisemitic (unt

[lbsaltzman]

11:18 PM on 01/28/2011

I agree, but being Jewish I know it is important that Jews not mistreat others either. And unfortunately Israelis are badly mistreating Palestinians and Lebanese.

[Leo Bloom]

12:25 AM on 01/30/2011

Fact: Lebanese of Palestinian ancestry are REFUSED BY LEBANESE PEOPLE: civil rights, employment rights, property rights, access to education, no access to hospitals or basic medical care, not allowed to travel freely, no allowed to re-build buildings damaged in various fights.

"Not allowed to works as: "doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers or accountants."
http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=65

[sleepwhenimdead]

04:10 PM on 01/28/2011

I'll be the first to say that there should be a museum/memorial dedicated to all the Iraqi civilians AND the U.S. troops who have lost their lives. You want to talk about people not being honored and respected for their sacrifices, well here you go.

[CrazyThisIs]

04:53 PM on 01/28/2011

You're certainly not the first to say it. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't. How long did it take before the Holocaust memorial was erected?

[BcemXAHA]

05:45 PM on 01/28/2011

Yad Vashem was established in 1950.

[adamben]

05:02 PM on 01/28/2011

well, go an create it! please.

[rj1340]

03:54 PM on 01/28/2011

Think Mel Gibson will be googling "Holocaust" anytime soon?

[AlexNYC]

05:17 PM on 01/28/2011

A totally unnecessary post.

[BuckoForce]

03:52 PM on 01/28/2011

It is a good thing. I think it is important to know this story, I just took my kid to the new Holocaust museum in Los Angeles. It was really well done, they even had exhibits on Sudan, Armenia, Cambodia, and such. While I am not happy with Israel and it's government policies, I would never diminish the holocaust.

[rikster]

05:10 PM on 01/28/2011

you are a victim of the media.

[jsuperconductor]

06:23 PM on 01/28/2011

I am a middle school student nerd, every time I get beaten up, my mom gives me 20 dollars, pretty soon, I'll hire you to beat me up, give you 5, pocket 15. America=Mo­m, nerd=jews, bully=fict­itious situation that do not exist in contempora­ry society or "We Love Hitler Day" as celebrated by heebjoos every day, so we need to keep the big story of being beaten up fresh in everyone minds, so we can get our daily 20$, ABCNNBCBSP­N get the other 5$

[BcemXAHA]

05:49 PM on 01/28/2011

You are such an angry individual.

[jsuperconductor]

06:16 PM on 01/28/2011

he isn't angry, sounds quite level-headed and FACT based

[Israelibabs]

03:09 PM on 01/28/2011

The Children's section and the Art from the Holocaust are my favorite parts of Yad Vashem. I would love to share that experience virtually with my friends and grand-children. The graves of the Righteous Christians and Schindler are under trees with plaques. It was just a moving experience. One of the men on the tour pointed out a picture on the wall that was him and his mother with the stars on their clothes. He was a small child at the time from the Netherlands. Both him and his mother survived.

[esbNortheast]

02:48 PM on 01/28/2011

Many of the angry posters seem resentful that Google is planning a collaboration with The Holocaust Museum while not doing the same for other groups that have suffered greatly. The Holocaust Museum was started in the 1950s to honor the memory of the Jews who were murdered during this time, to collect stories and to assist in reuniting families or at least letting families know what happened to their loved ones. Fifty years of research and volunteerism have gone into creating this remarkable database. Google is not creating this database. From what I have read, they are simply going to make it available to view online. If you strongly feel that a memorial such as this should exist for another group of people, then by all means, start working on a way of recording information and creating a database that Google can then consider.

[Talossa]

03:11 PM on 01/28/2011

People are angry at this Google collaboration because they hate Jews, deny the Holocaust, or think it is some plot by the Learned Elders of Zion or "ZOG" to take over the world. You can't reason with these people.

[Fractal122635]

04:59 PM on 01/28/2011

Exactly.

[Tulka2]

02:39 PM on 01/28/2011

Out of sight; out of mind.
The worst hopeful forgetting in Egypt today.
The most hopeful remembering here. 
May the internet buzz above our heads forever.
May all be remembered.

[sleepwhenimdead]

02:36 PM on 01/28/2011

Everyone take a breath. Remembering one genocide does not discount all other suffering to have occurred in the history of our planet. Only on the internet can people start an argument about The Holocaust. What's the point in arguing which one was "worse" and how they were "different from each other". I can't think of a more idiotic thing to debate. This is just shocking and disgusting. When you remember one atrocity, you remember them all. The way in which mass killings reflect mass moral and spiritual decrepitude should be enough. Horrendous, evil things have happened and continue to happen. Let's collectively remember so we can collectively begin to change the course of our humanity towards peace and understanding.

[Talossa]

03:11 PM on 01/28/2011

Proud to be your first fan.

[sleepwhenimdead]

04:05 PM on 01/28/2011

Much appreciated. I mean come on, this is despicable! It's akin to debating which act of racism during the Civil Rights Movement was the worst. It's all racism, people! It's all genocide! Stop fussing over semantics and start eliminating the circumstances for all of these conditions.

[BcemXAHA]

04:23 PM on 01/28/2011

I'll be your third fan. I really like your post.

[Evan Seltzer]

02:36 PM on 01/28/2011

Sorry deniers, but could you feel any stupider than you do now?

[kasukabe]

04:05 PM on 01/28/2011

They're not clever enough to realize how stupid they are.