Google has partnered with Israel’s Yad Vashem museum to put the world’s largest collection of Holocaust documents and photos online.

In the first part of the initiative 130,000 photos from Yad Vashem’s archive will be viewable online, the day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“Google is an integral partner in our mission, as they help us to reach new audiences, including young people around the world, enabling them to be active in the discussion about the Holocaust,” said Avner Shalev, Chairman, Yad Vashem.

Google has implemented experimental optical character recognition (OCR) technology to carry out this project, making previously difficult to locate documents searchable and discoverable online.

The Jerusalem-based archive is devoted to the documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust. As of today, its photo collection will be made more widely accessible for people around the world to search and discover the photographs on its website and share their own personal stories and thoughts.

“For some time, Google has been working to bring the world’s historical and cultural heritage online. The Internet offers a great opportunity to preserve and share important materials stored in archives,” said Yossi Matias, Director of Google’s R&D centre in Israel.

“We’re privileged to be able to work with the world’s foremost Holocaust archive on this project.”