But there is something that you can do to make the Shoah feel a lot more personal to you.
If you are Jewish, or have a Jewish last name, you can search the Yad Vashem Shoah Victims Database and look for someone with a name identical, or similar to, yours. Chances are very high that anyone's Hebrew name will generate a match, or several.
To give an example, I searched for David Schwimmer, the actor from "Friends." Even though it is not exactly a common name, there were dozens of matches with various variants of the name.
Find your own doppelganger. For most victims, the details are sparse but you can usually find out their birthdates, their relatives' names and where they lived.
It is even more emotional to enter in the name of a loved one and see the people with that name that were murdered.
You may be the only living being who cares about or remembers those specific people. So many entire families were wiped out by the Germans that there are many victims who have no living relatives.
Light a candle for them.
