Yad Vashem wants to stimulate Holocaust research work in Belarus, the country’s Israeli ambassador said.
“Time is passing,” Ze’ev Ben Arie said. “It’s critical to do the work for immortalization of the names as soon as possible. If we will not do something now, we will never do it.”
Belarusian volunteers have compiled the names of 30,000 Jews that perished in the Holocaust in the country.
About 100 volunteers work in 16 areas of Belarus to find the names of victims using archives, and with the assistance of museums and schools. The project began in Belarus in 2006.
Approximately 800,000 Jews perished in Belarus during World War II. Some 200 ghettos were located there.
“By now, we have managed to restore only a small part of the names of people that perished in Belarus,” said Avner Shalev, the head of the executive board of the Yad Vashem Institute, at a meeting with volunteers in Minsk. “We want to find out new names.”
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