(Jewish Group) Once just faces, these Holocaust victims now have names

[Behind the Aegis]

A group of Jewish young men pose while on an excursion in the Macedonian woods in 1941. The man seated in the front row, far left, has been identified as Nissim Kassorla by Numbers To Names according to Daniel Patt. (Photo/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Gabriel Albocher)

For International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, Silicon Valley resident Daniel Patt was flown to New York City to take part in a taping of “The View,” the popular daytime television show.

He knew he was going to talk about his creation, From Numbers to Names, which identifies people in Holocaust-era photos using artificial intelligence by comparing them with photos in archives at Yad Vashem in Israel and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. But “I didn’t know what to expect,” the Google software engineer said.

What awaited him were video hookups with three people he had helped by identifying their family members. One was the actor Josh Gad, who appeared on camera with his mother, Susan, whose grandmother was killed in the Holocaust before she was born. They described how — due to Patt’s efforts — they felt a certain sense of closure they never expected. Susan never had a chance to meet her grandmother. Now she had a photo of her.

“That gift that Daniel brought us is truly a miracle,” Gad said.

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