By Toby Axelrod Published: 01/22/2008

BAD AROLSEN, Germany (JTA) — On index cards, letters and crumbling ledgers, a numbing 17.5 million names of those trapped in the Nazi camps and ghettos are held on rows of shelves.

The numbness cracks the moment a visitor shakes open a small brown envelope and the photos spill out: a wedding, a picnic, a passport. Out tumbles a ring from one envelope; an ID with a thumbprint falls out of another.

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