Computerization and Imparting the Righteous Legacy in the Age of Social Networks
Yad Vashem is committed not only to bestowing the title of Righteous Among the Nations, but also to imparting the rescuers' stories and legacy and to perpetuating their memory. To this end Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research published a ten-volume Encyclopedia of the Righteous among the Nations who were recognized until 2005. In 2009 the Remembrance Authority embarked on a major project to create an online database of all the Righteous Among the Nations and to scan the files in the Department’s archive so as to preserve this unique collection of testimonies, documents and photographs and to make it accessible. These resources serve educators, researchers and interested parties all over the world; they encourage families of rescuers and rescued to provide additional information, and in a number of cases, help members of the third and fourth generation to learn about their family history and to re-establish contact between the families of rescuers and rescued. Social networks have an increasing role in Yad Vashem's endeavors to reach out and impart rescue stories; they also provide a platform for the efforts to find relatives of rescuers and rescued.