According to independent research carried out by the Data Brigade and the International Centre for Litvak Photography, at least five million Lithuanian Jewish family photographs were either burned or otherwise destroyed during the systematic looting and destruction of privately-owned Jewish property that took place throughout Lithuania between approximately June and December 1941. The Useless Archive is a long-term project to replace these unique and historically priceless artefacts by digitally preserving five million surrogate images that left Lithuania with their emigrating families before the Second World War. The photographs shown here feature some of the images that were collected together during the project’s initial pilot programme that took place between November 2022 and April 2023. Click on Albums (above) to see more.