Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem (יד ושם) - ("Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority") - is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust established in 1953 through the Memorial Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

The origin of the name is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name … that shall not be cut off." (Isaiah, chapter 56, verse 5) In Hebrew, "a memorial and a name" translates as yad va-shem.

Located in Jerusalem, it consists of a memorial chamber, a historical museum, an art gallery, a Hall of Names, an archive, the "Valley of the Destroyed Communities", a synagogue, and an educational centre. As well, non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, often at great personal risk, are honoured by Yad Vashem as the "Righteous among the Nations".

Layout

The new Holocaust History Museum was built as a prism-like triangular structure. It is 180 meters long, with stark walls made from reinforced concrete. The museum covers an area of more than 4,000 square meters and is mostly situated below ground level.

There are 10 exhibition halls, each devoted to a different chapter in the history of the Holocaust. Unlike the exhibition in the old museum, which was primarily composed of photographs, the new exhibition comprises many elements, including 280 works of art and 2,500 presentations and personal artifacts donated to Yad Vashem by Holocaust survivors, museums and memorial sites around the world.

Activities

Yad Vashem coordinates the following activities:

• Documentation:
  • recording testimonies of survivors
  • collecting the names of those who perished during the Holocaust [1]
  • collecting photos, documents and resources regarding the Holocaust

• Research and studies:
  • conducting research regarding the Holocaust
  • encouraging students to research the Holocaust
  • publishing research and making it available to the general public

• Education:
  • operating the International School for Holocaust Studies [2]
  • developing study programs for both Israeli and foreign schools in order to teach young students about the Holocaust
  • holding exhibitions about the Holocaust
  • teaching about the Holocaust to the general public

• Memorial:
  • preserving the memory and names of those who died during the Holocaust
  • holding ceremonies of remembrance

Museum

In 1993, the Yad Vashem institute decided to build a new, larger museum to replace the old, smaller museum, which was built during the 1960s. This was in response to the construction of larger Holocaust museums in Washington D.C. and Europe. The new museum is the largest Holocaust museum in the world. It is carved into the mountain and designed to reflect the story of the European Jewish community during the Holocaust and their resurrection from the ashes in Israel. It consists of a long corridor with 10 exhibition halls, each dedicated to a different chapter of the Holocaust. The museum combines the personal stories of 90 Holocaust victims and survivors and presents in its exhibitions about 2500 personal items: artworks and letters from the Holocaust donated by survivors. The new museum also includes an auditorium, study hall, computerized data bank and memorial monuments of the more than six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Since the 1950s, Yad Vashem has collected approximately 44,000 taped testimonies by Holocaust survivors; as the survivors age and are beginning to become less mobile, the program has expanded to visiting survivors in their homes to tape interviews.

On March 15, 2005, the dedication of the new Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Israel took place. The impressive building was designed by the worldwide renowned Jewish architect, Moshe Safdie. Leaders from 40 states and the Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan attended the inauguration of Holocaust museum. President of Israel Moshe Katzav said that the new museum serves as "an important signpost to all of humankind, a signpost that warns how short the distance is between hatred and murder, between racism and genocide." [3] The building's triangular architectural-shape is said to represent the bottom half of a Star of David, because the world's Jewish population was cut in half as a result of the Holocaust.

Righteous Among the Nations

The museum also honors the Righteous Among the Nations. For example, a small garden and plaque on the grounds of Yad Vashem is dedicated to the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France who, during World War II, made their town a haven for Jews fleeing from the Nazis.

A few of the more than 20,000 non-Jews so honoured:

• Władysław Bartoszewski
• Johan Benders
• Corrie ten Boom
• Archbishop Damaskinos
• Gottfried von Einem
• Varian Fry
• Miep Gies
• Marie-Rose Gineste
• Hermann Friedrich Graebe
• Aristides Sousa Mendes
• Czesław Miłosz
• Dorothea Neff
• Jonas Paulavicius
• Frits Philips
• Karl Plagge
• Traian Popovici
• Oskar Schindler and Emilie Schindler
• Irena Sendler
• Suzanne Spaak
• Chiune Sugihara
• André Trocmé
• Magda Trocmé
• Raoul Wallenberg
• Johan Hendrik Weidner
• Wilm Hosenfeld
• Alexandre Glasberg
• Feng Shan Ho
• Dimitar Peshev

See also

• Righteous Among the Nations
• List of Righteous Among the Nations by country
• List of people who helped Jews during the Holocaust
• Holocaust memorials

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