Yom HaShoah: 2,000 memorials database, April 12

On April 12, Yom HaShoah - Shoah (Holocaust) Remembrance Day - commemorates Jewish communities that vanished all over Europe. It also marks the results of pogroms following the creation of Israel in Arab countries.

The Israel Genealogical Society has a database of nearly 2,000 memorials and monuments for such communities. They are in cemeteries and towns, synagogues, forests and also live in street names.

IGS invites readers to search the database and see if your ancestral towns have memorials in Israel, see photos of them and note their locations. Here's the search box:

Search parameters:

-- Select the "country" list to see all lands where Sephardim used to live. According to IGS, the project is dedicated to an Algerian Jew who perished in Auschwitz.

-- Search by town name, region name, or country; near town, country, or location of the monument in Israel.

-- Places may be listed with different spellings depending on pronunciation in native language or in Yiddish.

-- Search by "is exactly," "starts with" (three-letter minimum), "contains"(three-letter minimum).

-- Search by Hebrew name of the community.

-- If you can't find a memorial in Israel that you know is there, search by country (today) name of that location.

-- Use creative spelling.

Readers aware of memorials in Israel not found in the database are invited to send in photos and documentation so locations may be added.