#everynamecounts challenge for 80th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation proves a huge success

Strong social media response

“This is remembrance culture at its best. It’s easy for people to participate, and every small contribution helps build a meaningful memorial. Each file represents a whole life. “Never again” means remembering, not forgetting. The fact that so many people are taking part gives me hope,” wrote Jessica Kogoj, city youth officer in Frankfurt, on Instagram.

She is one of some 60,000 volunteers and organizations that took part in this year’s #everynamecounts challenge for Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Anne Frank Educational Center, the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future,” and UNESCO Germany are just a few of those who got involved. We were especially pleased that influencers like Susanne Siegert brought the challenge to people’s attention and created even more visibility for our initiative.

Challenge expanded to 80,000 documents

The first 27,000 prisoner registration cards – most of them from the Auschwitz concentration camp – were digitized in a very short time. One of the cards contains the details of a little boy named Marek who was born in the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was assigned a prisoner number at birth – 155912. In October 1944, the Nazis deported Marek to a children’s home. There is no record of what happened to him after that. Marek’s parents spent years searching for their son.

Digitizing the documents and putting them online means that people all over the world can access them. We hope that this will make it possible to clarify the fates of even more victims. And the same goes for the prisoner registration cards from the Mauthausen concentration camp, which we added to the challenge for the remaining days of the week-long campaign in response to the hard work and dedication of our volunteers.

Schools take part

Many school classes took part in the challenge as well, including the history and religion classes from grades 8 to 12 at Kopernikus-Gymnasium Wissen and the the history department at the Gymnasium am Moltkeplatz in Krefeld. “Taking part in the #everynamecounts challenge was a powerful reminder to us all of just how important it is not to forget the past – and to play an active role in ensuring that the fate of the victims is never forgotten,” the student council wrote on its website.

After the challenge is before the challenge

Thank you to everyone who helped to ensure that the fates of so many people will never be forgotten. We could not have achieved this without all the individuals, institutions, and initiatives who shared our #everynamecounts challenge on social media.

The response to the 2025 #everynamecounts challenge has been overwhelming – but many millions of documents still need to be digitized if the online archive of the Arolsen Archives is to continue to grow. For this reason, we are still asking people to take part in #everynamecounts, even though the challenge is over. Please continue to help build the digital memorial to the victims and survivors of Nazism!