JGSGB AGM with Speaker Dr Sima Velcovich, "Yad Vashem: Finding Relatives Lost in the Holocaust"
Five million of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators are commemorated in Yad Vashem’s online Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names. This lecture will highlight new features and materials within the database, as well as provide practical tips for utilizing it to its fullest potential. It will also introduce additional online resources from Yad Vashem that are especially valuable for genealogical research.
About Dr Serafima Sima Velkovich
Dr. Serafima Velkovich received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on the microhistory of Holocaust survivors’ families, the DP baby boom, genealogical reconstruction, Holocaust memory, and the formation of personal and collective identities among individuals born in DP camps.
Dr. Velkovich is Head of the Family Roots Research Section in the Yad Vashem Archives, where she has worked for more than twenty years. She is a member of the board of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS). She has held fellowships from Yad Vashem, the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, and the NYU Center for the Study of Antisemitism. Her recent publication includes “Polish Citizenship as a Way to Freedom: How Soviet Jews Escaped the Totalitarian Regime Using Polish Documents,” in History and Memory of Polish Jews in the USSR (2021). "Hybrid Holocaust Memory: Former Displaced Persons-Born Babies Transmit Their Family History" in the Special Issue "Remembering Genocides and Violent Conflicts: Intergenerational Memory and Post-History in Contemporary Societies", Journal of Genocide Research. (forthcoming)