Building a digital memorial together

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers are helping us digitize the names and data of victims of Nazi persecution.

#everynamecounts is a crowdsourcing initiative of the Arolsen Archives: In cooperation with hundreds of thousands of volunteers throughout the world, we’re building a digital memorial to the victims of Nazi persecution. In this way, we remember the victims’ names and identities – preserving their memory for future generations.

Become part of a large international community and help us capture the data from millions of historical documents. With your support, we are building the world’s largest online archive on the victims of Nazi persecution.

Everyone can be part of it

Entering the data using our online form is easy and intuitive. It only takes a few minutes to process a document. With every data set you create, you help preserve the memory of a persecuted individual – and stand up for respect, diversity, and democracy. That is as important today as it ever was – because the reasons for persecution are not a thing of the past.

Every entry counts

As the card files and documents contain many entries that were written by hand, they cannot simply be read out by OCR, i.e. optical character recognition. That is why every single manual entry is indispensable. To prevent errors, every document is processed by three volunteers before the data set is added to the online archive. Through #everynamecounts, the archival collections are being indexed more deeply and can be searched more easily.

Many participants tell us that they feel a very direct connection with the person whose name they’re typing. They have a strong sense of the terrible injustice that was done and they make connections between the past and the present themselves. The reasons for persecution aren’t a thing of the past!

Floriane Azoulay, former Director of the Arolsen Archives

When will the digital memorial be complete?

The digital memorial is growing all the time. Because as the biggest archive and international center on Nazi persecution, we strive to gather information about persecuted individuals beyond our own collection. In our #everynamecounts challenges, we regularly invite other archives to have their documents digitized using our crowdsourcing tool. In this way, we are advancing the digitization of information about Nazi persecution and making it accessible to anyone with an interest in the topic. Many more helping hands will be needed if we are to continue building and expanding the digital memorial.

#everynamecounts in schools

#everynamecounts gives young people exciting opportunities to learn about Nazi persecution and to actively participate in remembrance culture. At the same time, they learn methodological skills when they work with archival sources. Read more about how the initiative promotes research- and discovery-based learning.

#everynamecounts in schools

Demonstrate responsibility as a company

Many companies and initiatives demonstrate their commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by taking part in #everynamecounts. Pfizer, Accenture, the Schwarzkopf foundation, and the #wirfürvielfalt network are just a few of the organizations that have supported the project so far. Join them in taking social responsibility and use your involvement to take a stand for respect, diversity, and democracy!

#everynamecounts as CSR

#everynamecounts in politics and public administration

From Members of Parliament and prominent politicians to administrative clerks and embassy staff – #everynamecounts has a lot of supporters in the political sphere. Many of them use their personal social media channels to raise awareness of the initiative and often take part and enter data themselves.

#everynamecounts in the world of politics

High-profile supporters

They take #everynamecounts into stadiums, public spaces, and the political arena – public figures are powerful allies of our initiative and help our community to grow. Use your visibility to stand up for respect, diversity, and democracy!

High-profile supporters for #everynamecounts

#everynamecounts in the media