New software uses artificial intelligence to identify Holocaust victims

Published: 28 June 2022

Last updated: 5 March 2024

Holocaust descendants can use an online program to find images of their loved ones

A software engineer in New York has created and developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) that scans through hundreds of thousands of photos to help identify victims and survivors of the Holocaust.

From Number to Names (N2N), is an artificially intelligent facial recognition platform that can scan through photos from prewar Europe and the Holocaust (e.g. 1914–1945), linking them to people living today. Daniel Patt, a 40-year-old software engineer now working for Google, works on the project in his own free time with his own resources according to the article but is being joined by a growing team of engineers, researchers, and data scientists.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) website, there is no single list identifying the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, and that research to find individuals' stories is a long process following leads on minimal information. The museum does, however, offer various ways onsite for the families of survivors and victims seeking information and documentation.

Patt's inspiration for creating the AI came in 2016 while visiting Warsaw’s POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, said The Times of Israel. Haunted by the possibility of unknowingly walking past the faces of relatives, Patt developed N2N so he could help his family and others find photos of murdered loved ones.

The way N2N works is by scanning through hundreds of thousands of photos made available by the USHMM, as well as photos from individual survivors and their descendants, according to The Times of Israel. The software isn't perfect, however, and only returns the 10 best potential matches that it can find in the database available to it.