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YAD VASHEM PROJECT

Donald Hirschhorn, JGSPBCI'S Names Recovery Campaign Coordinator for Palm Beach County, has developed a major Yad Vashem project under the auspices of our Society--the Pages of Testimony for the Names Recovery Drive (POT). Under Don's leadership we became the first Jewish Genealogical Society to actively collect Pages of Testimony.

Following Don's lead, a local committee was formed in 2006 with volunteers from our JGSPBCI membership, with the mission of locating and obtaining Pages of Testimony from submitters. This has been done through publicity and contacting and speaking to various groups and individuals.

Since the inception of this JGSPBCI program, our group has been instrumental in signing up 28 additional JGSs to join in this project. They operate independently of us, but do receive Email information from us as well as from Yad Vashem.

In addition, Don has recruited 24 Jewish Community and survivor organizations in Florida, including Naamat, B'nai B'rith, Hadassah, ORT, and Brandeis University National Women's Committee. He has also developed a volunteer corps throughout South Florida to assist survivors in submitting Pages of Testimony.

JGSPBI volunteers, along with other volunteers, are in the middle of a drive to get Palm Beach County Temples committed to Yad Vashem's Names Recovery campaign. All Synagogues and temples in Palm Beach County are in the process of being contacted by fax, mail, email and phone Time is running out to reach Holocaust Survivors who can add Victims Names to the Hall of Names in Jerusalem.

If you are a member of any congregation or Jewish organization please contact Don Hirschhorn at 561-883-8566 to submit the name of your organization. We need more volunteers, particularly to contact Jewish organizations and any and all groups affiliated with a Temple so that we can offer presentations to them.

For groups or individuals who wish to volunteer there is a training session which includes a ten minute DVD prepared by Yad Vashem and a one hour lecture. We also keep in touch with our volunteers with email updates.

This season the committee is currently working on developing a second project -- How to Find a Live Relative Using Pages of Testimony. To our knowledge, JGSPBCI is the first organization using Pages of Testimony to attempt to locate missing living relatives of survivors. Support for this drive will come from the Israel Genealogical Society which has been assisting in locating submitters in Israel.

You can now stay informed in a timely manner with an easy to access format to Yad Vashem's free newspaper. Go to www.yadvashem.org and click on "subscribe" in the upper right corner. For information on how to complete a page of testimony go to Instructions For Submitting Pages Of Testimony. To download and print out a Page of Testimony form, click here.