18 | AUGUST 25 • 2022

Oxana Korol of the Hall
of Names replied to me:
“We are always pleased to
hear of cases where peo-
ple who are listed in the
documentation at Yad
Vashem as having per-
ished in the Holocaust,
were actually able to survive.”
She explained the process
required to update Fishel’s
record, something I will leave for
Ira to do.
The families of Fishel, Sol and
Zygie are participating in month-
ly Zoom chats, most recently on
Aug. 6. The Alvais brothers are
considering changing their last
name to Allweiss. There’s talk
of California cousin Jack and
wife, Patty, and Allweiss cousin
Miriam Manber of Manhattan,
visiting our cousins in Israel.
Alexander and maybe the other
Fishel grandchildren intend to
tour the Jaslany area if things in
Poland “get calmer,” Ira said.
She also said that she wants to
get a visa to visit the U.S., to “give
you all a big hug — instead of
Fishel, instead of my mom — but
mine, at least once.”
We Allweiss cousins already
love each other.
“Our relatives are so friendly
and nice,” said my sister Irene.
She and Ira were named for their
Aunt Renya Allweiss. “Irina is
such a sweet person. They all are
— Ira, Gershon and Alexander
— very nice people! They have
helped to enrich my life by
knowing them.”

Esther Allweiss Ingber, a native Detroiter

of Oak Park, has been associated with the

Detroit Jewish News off and on since she

was a student intern in 1970. She is a lifelong

member of the Jewish Genealogical and

Jewish Historical societies of Michigan and a

board member of CHAIM.

“... And I shall give them in My house and within My walls a memorial and a

name ... that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah, 56:5) — inscription at the entrance to

The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem

Since 1955, Yad Vashem — The World Holocaust Memorial Center has

sought to preserve the memory of an estimated 6 million Jews who died during

the Holocaust. Yad Vashem works to collect their names and artifacts. The cur-

rent museum, opened in 2005 on the edge of Jerusalem, offers nine galleries of

interactive, historical displays. They portray the horror of the Holocaust through

a range of multimedia. As stated on the Yad Vashem website, the museum offers

“photographs, films, documents, letters, works of art and personal items found in

the camps and ghettos.”

The Hall of Names of Yad Vashem houses a vast collection of Pages of

Testimony. Each of the one-page forms preserves a Jew’s personal identity.

Survivors, relatives and friends complete and submit the forms for Jews they know

either lost their lives or are unaccounted for from the Holocaust era. The Pages

include names, biographical details and, when available, photographs of Jewish individuals.

“The act of commemorating the names of Shoah victims on Pages of Testimony serves a

dual purpose,” said Oxana Korol, employed at The Hall of Names. Those purposes include

“providing comfort and closure to the bereaved family, and also leaving a trail of biographical

information — including the names and contact details — of those who survived. This informa-

tion remains on record as a part of the database, to be preserved for all eternity for genera-

tions to come.”

The museum’s Shoah Victims’ Names Database currently contains 4.8 million names out

of the 6 million Jews widely believed to have perished during the Holocaust. The database

includes approximately 2.7 million names from scanned Pages of Testimony and the remain-

der were retrieved from archives and other sources.

Since the database was uploaded to the internet in 2004, Korol said Yad Vashem has

learned many heartwarming stories about “families who have been reunited with or discov-

ered relatives with whom they had lost contact in the wake of the Shoah.” Now the Allweisses

are one of those families.

The Shoah Victims’ Names Recovery Project continues. It is truly a race against time to find

and preserve more names as Holocaust survivors leave the scene. As the Yad Vashem web-

site states: “Millions of names that appear in historical documents have not yet been identified

or recorded in the database, and many additional names still linger in the memories of survi-

vors or in their family folklore. Building the database is a work in progress. It is our moral duty

to respect their final wishes to remember them.”

Reaching out to Jewish communities and organizations all over the world, the project’s

urgent request is to recover more names. Families

and individuals are encouraged to check the data-

base for the names of Shoah victims known to them.

Assistance is available to help people complete the

historical record.

Children and grandchildren of survivors wanting to

participate, based on what their late parents or grand-

parents told them, may complete the pages online by

visiting forms.yadvashem.org. Following are other ways

to contact the museum:

Mailing address:

Yad Vashem

P.O. Box 3477

Jerusalem 9103401

Israel

Inquiries: (972) 2-644-3547

Hall of Names: (972) 2-644-3580

Website: yadvashem.org

Sol and Zygie
Allweiss held up by
a strong friend

Ira Kuravsky came
across this Page
of Testimony
filled out by her
unknown uncle,
Zygie Allweiss, for
her grandfather
and his brother,
Fishel Allweiss. The
source of Fishel’s
attached photo is
not known.

continued from page 17

ON THE COVER

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Pages of Testimony
OUR COMMUNITY