Engineer creates AI tool to identify Holocaust victims in WWII photos
A Google engineer has created software that uses AI to help Holocaust descendants identify images of their loved ones.
The platform called From Numbers to Names (N2N) provides a new way to explore Holocaust photo and video archives through AI.
The tool scans through hundreds of thousands of photos made available by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), as well as photos from individual survivors and their descendants as reported by The Times of Israel.
The creator of the project, Daniel Patt, a 40-year-old software engineer for Google, reportedly works on it in his free time with his own resources but is being joined by a growing team of engineers, researchers, and data scientists.
From Number to Names (N2N) can scan through photos from prewar Europe and the Holocaust and links them to people living today.
‘There’s an urgency to this effort as the last remaining survivors pass, and there are many connections that could still be made. We hope that N2N can help build those connections while the survivors are still with us,’ Patt told The Times of Israel.
Most of The US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Photographs Collection, containing more than 34,000 photos, is now searchable by the discovery tool.
Currently there is no single list identifying the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.
The 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 was inspired to create the AI in 2016 while visiting Warsaw’s POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. He reportedly developed N2N so he could help his family and others find photos of loved ones.
For individuals looking to use the site, all they have to do is upload a photo from roughly the same time.
The software only returns the 10 best potential matches that it can find in the database available to it, so it still needs a bit of work.
‘Looking ahead, we’d like for N2N to become a vehicle for Holocaust education, giving students an opportunity to directly contribute to the historical record,’ said Patt.
The nonprofit hopes to partner with museums, schools, research institutions, and other organizations which share common goals around Holocaust education in the future.
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