Israel's Holocaust remembrance centre, Yad Vashem, has identified the names of five million Jews who were killed by the Nazis during World War II.
Officials said this marks a major step in restoring the memory of the six million Jewish people who lost their lives in the Holocaust, Times of Israel reported.
The centre said efforts will continue to trace the remaining one million names. "Reaching five million names is both a milestone and a reminder of our unfinished duty," said Yad Vashem's chairman Dani Dayan.
"Behind each name is a life that mattered, a child who never grew up, a parent who never came home, a voice that was silenced forever. It is our moral duty to ensure that every victim is remembered so that no one will be left behind in the darkness of anonymity."
Only about 200,000 Holocaust survivors are still alive today, and nearly half of them may not be here in the next few years, according to a calculation made by the Claims Conference earlier this year.
Yad Vashem said that while some names may never be found, new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning could help uncover more victims' identities in the future.
The effort to identify the names has brought together Jewish communities, archives, researchers, and families from around the world. A large part of the project is based on "Pages of Testimony," which are short memorial forms written by survivors, relatives, and friends of the victims. So far, over 2.8 million names have been collected through these pages in more than 20 languages, as per Times of Israel. -- ANI