Yad Vashem (Hebrew:יָד וַשֵׁם;lit.'a memorial and a name') isIsrael's official memorial to the victims of theHolocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the survivors; honoring Jews who fought against theirNazi oppressors andgentiles who selflessly aided Jews in need; and researching the phenomenon of the Holocaust in particular andgenocide in general, with the aim of avoiding such events in the future.[4] Yad Vashem's vision, as stated on its website, is: "To lead the documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, and to convey the chronicles of this singular Jewish and human event to every person in Israel, to the Jewish people, and to every significant and relevant audience worldwide."[5]
Established in 1953, Yad Vashem is located on the Mount of Remembrance, on the western slope ofMount Herzl, a height in westernJerusalem, 804 meters (2,638 ft)above sea level and adjacent to theJerusalem Forest. The memorial consists of a 180-dunam (18.0 ha; 44.5-acre) complex containing two types of facilities: some dedicated to the scientific study of the Holocaust, and memorials and museums catering to the needs of the larger public. Among the former there are an International Research Institute for Holocaust Research, an archives, a library, a publishing house and the International School for Holocaust Studies; the latter include the Holocaust History Museum, memorial sites such as theChildren's Memorial and the Hall of Remembrance, the Museum of Holocaust Art, sculptures, outdoor commemorative sites such as the Valley of the Communities, as well as asynagogue.
A core goal of Yad Vashem's founders was to recognize non-Jews who, at personal risk and without financial orevangelistic motives, chose to save Jews from the ongoing genocide during the Holocaust. Those recognized by Israel asRighteous Among the Nations are honored in a section of Yad Vashem known as theGarden of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Yad Vashem is the second-most-visited Israeli tourist site, after theWestern Wall, with approximately one million visitors each year. It charges no admission fee.
Etymology
The name "Yad Vashem" is taken from a verse in theBook of Isaiah (56:5):"[To] them will I give in my house and within my walls a [memorial] and a [name], better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting [name], that shall not be cut off [from memory]."[6][7]Hebrew:וְנָתַתִּי לָהֶם בְּבֵיתִי וּבְחוֹמֹתַייָד וָשֵׁם, טוֹב מִבָּנִים וּמִבָּנוֹת; שֵׁם עוֹלָם אֶתֶּן לוֹ, אֲשֶׁר לֹא יִכָּרֵת.). Naming the Holocaust memorial "yad vashem" (Hebrew:יָד וָשֵׁם,yād wā-šêm, literally "a memorial and a name") conveys the idea of establishing a national depository for the names of Jewish victims who have no one to carry their name after death. The original verse referred toeunuchs who, although they could not have children, could still live for eternity with the Lord.[8]
The desire to establish a memorial in the historicalJewish homeland for Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust originated duringWorld War II, in response to emerging accounts of the mass murder of Jews in Nazi-occupied countries. Yad Vashem was first proposed in September 1942, at a board meeting of theJewish National Fund, by Mordecai Shenhavi, a member of KibbutzMishmar Ha'emek.[8] In August 1945, the plan was discussed in greater detail at aZionist meeting in London. A provisional board of Zionist leaders was established that includedDavid Remez as chairman,Shlomo Zalman Shragai,Baruch Zuckerman, and Shenhavi. In February 1946, Yad Vashem opened an office in Jerusalem and a branch office inTel Aviv, and in June that year convened its first plenary session. In July 1947, the First Conference on Holocaust Research was held at theHebrew University of Jerusalem. However, the outbreak of the1947–1949 Palestine war brought operations to a standstill for two years.
On 19 August 1953, theKnesset, Israel's Parliament, unanimously passed the Yad Vashem Law, establishing theHolocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, the aim of which was "the commemoration in the Homeland of all those members of the Jewish people who gave their lives, or rose up and fought the Nazi enemy and its collaborators," and to set up "a memorial to them, and to the communities, organizations and institutions that were destroyed because they belonged to the Jewish people."[9]
Valley of the (Destroyed) Communities
On 29 July 1954, thecornerstone for the Yad Vashem building was laid on a hill in western Jerusalem, to be known as the Mount of Remembrance (Hebrew:Har HaZikaron); the organization had already begun projects tocollect the names of individuals killed in the Holocaust; acquire Holocaust documentation and personal testimonies ofsurvivors for the Archives and Library; and develop research and publications. The memorial and museum opened to the public in 1957.[10][11]
The location of Yad Vashem on the western side ofMount Herzl – an area devoid of weighty historical associations, distinct from theChamber of the Holocaust, founded in 1948 onMount Zion[12][13] – was chosen because it was far from the Jerusalem city center, and the founders of the memorial site did not want to erect a grim, sorrowful memorial, amidst population concentration. The conceptual connection of "From Holocaust to Rebirth" was made only with hindsight: Only in 2003 the Connecting Path between Yad Vashem and the National Cemetery in Mount Herzl was created and paved.[14][15] The "Valley of the Communities" monument at Yad Vashem commemorates over 5,000 Jewish communities destroyed or damaged during the Holocaust, the names of which are engraved on its towering walls. The position of Yad Vashem is that the Holocaust is incomparable to any other calamity previously inflicted on the Jewish people, and therefore the Holocaust cannot be regarded as a continuation of the death and destruction that plagued Jewish communities over the centuries, but rather as a unique phase in history, an unprecedented endeavor to totally annihilate the Jewish people.[16][17][18][19]
On 15 March 2005, a new Museum complex four times larger than the old one opened at Yad Vashem.[23] It included the Holocaust History Museum with a newHall of Names, a Museum of Holocaust Art, an Exhibitions Pavilion, a Learning Center and a Visual Center.[24][25] The new Yad Vashem museum was designed byIsraeli-Canadian architectMoshe Safdie, replacing the previous 30-year-old exhibition.[26] It was the culmination of a $100 million decade-long expansion project.[27]
Administration
In November 2008, RabbiYisrael Meir Lau was appointed chairman of Yad Vashem's council, replacingTommy Lapid.[28] The vice chairman of the council isMoshe Kantor.[29]Yitzhak Arad was vice chairman until his death on May 6, 2021.[30]Elie Wiesel was vice chairman of the council until his death on 2 July 2016.[31]
Yitzhak Arad served as the chairman of the directorate from 1972 to 1993. He was succeeded byAvner Shalev, who served as chairman until February 2021.[32] Shalev was succeeded as chairman byDani Dayan in August 2021.[33]
The CEO is Tzvika Fayirizen.[35] The Director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research is Iael Nidam-Orvieto.[36] The chair for Holocaust studies is Dan Michman. and Prof.Dina Porat is Senior Academic Advisor.[37] She also served as Chief Historian between the years 2011-2022.[34] Prior to that Prof.Yehuda Bauer[38] had that position.
The aims of Yad Vashem are education, research and documentation, and commemoration.[39] Yad Vashem organizes professional development courses for educators both in Israel and throughout the world; develops age-appropriate study programs, curricula, and educational materials for Israeli and foreign schools in order to teach students of all ages about the Holocaust; holds exhibitions about the Holocaust; collects the names of Holocaust victims;[40] collects photos, documents, and personal artifacts; and collectsPages of Testimony memorializing victims of the Holocaust.[41] Yad Vashem seeks to preserve the memory and names of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, and the numerous Jewish communities destroyed during that time. It holds ceremonies of remembrance and commemoration; supports Holocaust research projects; develops and coordinates symposia, workshops, and international conferences; and publishes research, memoirs, documents, albums, and diaries related to the Holocaust.[42] Yad Vashem also honors non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
The International Institute for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, founded in 1993, offers guides and seminars for students, teachers, and educators, and develops pedagogic tools for use in the classroom. Yad Vashem trains thousands of domestic and foreign teachers every year.[43][44][45]
Yad Vashem operates a web site in several languages, including English,[46] German,[47] Hebrew,[48]Persian,[49] French,[50] Russian,[51] Spanish[52] and Arabic.[53] In 2013 Yad Vashem launched an online campaign in Arabic, promoting Yad Vashem's website. The campaign reached over 2.4 million Arabic speakers from around the globe, and the traffic to Yad Vashem's website was tripled.[54]
The institution's policy is that the Holocaust "cannot be compared to any other event". In 2009 Yad Vashem fired a docent for comparing the trauma Jews suffered in the Holocaust to the trauma Palestinians suffered during1947–1949 Palestine war, including theDeir Yassin massacre.[55]
Yad Vashem Studies
Yad Vashem Studies is a peer-reviewed semi-annual scholarly journal on the Holocaust. Published since 1957, it appears in both English and Hebrew editions.[56]
Museum
View of Yad VashemYad Vashem Holocaust MuseumExterior of the new Holocaust History Museum
Yad Vashem building on the Mount of Remembrance was inaugurated in 1957. Its first exhibits, opened on 1958, focused on documentation of the Holocaust. The second exhibition, opened in 1959, presented paintings from the Holocaust Ghettos and camps.[57][58]
In 1993, planning began for a larger, more technologically advanced museum to replace the old one. The new building, designed by Canadian-Israeli architectMoshe Safdie, consists of a long corridor connected to 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 approximately 2,500 personal items including artwork and letters donated by survivors and others. The old historical displays revolving aroundanti-Semitism and the rise ofNazism have been replaced by exhibits that focus on the personal stories of Jews killed in the Holocaust. According toAvner Shalev, the museum's curator and chairman, a visit to the new museum revolves around "looking into the eyes of the individuals. There weren't six million victims, there were six million individual murders."[58]
The new museum was dedicated on 15 March 2005 in the presence of leaders from 40 states and thenSecretary General of theUNKofi Annan.President of IsraelMoshe Katzav said that Yad Vashem 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".[59]
In April 2019, Yad Vashem started a new collection center to house and conserve millions of artifacts from the Holocaust.[60][61]
Architecture
Prism skylight
The first architect involved in the design of Yad Vashem wasMunio Weinraub, who worked on the project from 1943 till the 1960s, together with his architectural partnerAl Mansfield.[62] He was approached for this purpose by Mordechai Shenhavi, the initiator and first director of the institution.[62] Weinraub's plans were not realised as a whole, but some of his ideas are visible in Yad Vashem today.[62]
The new Holocaust History Museum, designed byMoshe Safdie, is shaped like a triangular concreteprism that cuts through the landscape, illuminated by a 200-meter-long (656 ft) skylight. Visitors follow a preset route that takes them through underground galleries that branch off from the main hall.[27] Safdie is also the architect behind theChildren's Memorial and the Deportees (cattle-car) Memorial.
The gates are the work of the sculptor David Palombo (1920–1966).
The Hall of Names containing Pages of Testimony commemorating the millions of Jews who were murdered during theHolocaust
The Hall of Names is a memorial to the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. The main hall is composed of two cones: one ten meters high, with a reciprocal well-like cone excavated into the underground rock, its base filled with water. On the upper cone is a display featuring 600 photographs of Holocaust victims and fragments ofPages of Testimony. These are reflected in the water at the bottom of the lower cone, commemorating those victims whose names remain unknown. Surrounding the platform is the circular repository, housing the approximately 2.7 million Pages of Testimony collected to date,[63] with empty spaces for those yet to be submitted.
Since the 1950s, Yad Vashem has collected approximately 110,000 audio, video, and written testimonies by Holocaust survivors. As the survivors age, the program has expanded to visiting survivors in their homes, to tape interviews. Adjoining the hall is a study area with a computerized data bank where visitors can do online searches for the names of Holocaust victims.
Archives
The Archive is the oldest department of Yad Vashem. Before presenting an exhibition, Yad Vashem collects items. The best known of these are the historical photographs, as well as the Pages of Testimonies collected from survivors. The latter is a database of personal information about those who survived and those who were murdered in the Holocaust. Yad Vashem has also acquired access to the database of theInternational Tracing Service of Bad Arolsen of theInternational Committee of the Red Cross, and these two databases complement each other for research purposes.
Tree, memorial honoringIrena Sendler (Polish social worker who smuggled more than 2,500 Jewish children out of theWarsaw Ghetto)[64]Janusz Korczak and the children, memorialMemorial to the Jewish children murdered by the Nazis
One of Yad Vashem's tasks is to honor non-Jews who risked their lives, liberty, or positions to save Jews during the Holocaust. To this end, a special independent commission, headed by a retired Supreme Court justice, was established. The commission members, including historians, public figures, lawyers, and Holocaust survivors, examine and evaluate each case according to a well-defined set of criteria and regulations. The Righteous receive a certificate of honor and a medal, and their names are commemorated in theGarden of the Righteous Among the Nations,[65] on the Mount of Remembrance, Yad Vashem. This is an ongoing project that will continue for as long as there are valid requests, substantiated by testimonies or documentation. Five hundred and fifty-five individuals were recognized during 2011, and as of 2021[update], more than 27,921 individuals have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.[66]
Yad Vashem's declared policy is not to provide meaningful recognition, even in a possible new category, to Jews who rescued Jews, regardless of the number of people their activism saved. The stated reason is that Jews had an obligation to save fellow Jews and do not deserve recognition.[67][68]
Controversies
Ładoś Group
In April 2019 the Yad Vashem granted the title ofRighteous Among the Nations toKonstanty Rokicki and offered "appreciation" toAleksander Ładoś andStefan Ryniewicz arguing that Rokicki headed theŁadoś Group. The document erroneously called Ładoś and Ryniewicz "consuls".[69] The decision sparked outrage and frustration among the family members of the two other late Polish diplomats, and among survivors.[70][71] Thirty one of them signed an open letter to Yad Vashem.[72] Rokicki's cousin refused to accept the medal until two other Polish diplomats, Rokicki's superior are recognized as Righteous Among The Nations, too. Polish Ambassador to SwitzerlandJakub Kumoch who contributed to the discovery of Rokicki also refuted the Yad Vashem's interpretation stating that Rokicki worked under Ładoś and Ryniewicz.[73] Eldad Beck ofIsrael Hayom suggested that this decision was politically inspired and related to the worsening ofIsrael-Poland relations due to the controversy over theAmendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance.[71]
Political interference and leadership
In 2018, Yad Vashem chief historian Dina Porat participated in developing a compromise agreement between theIsraeli andPolish governments about Poland’s record during the Holocaust, and moderating a Polish law criminalizing any assertion of any Polish complicity in the Holocaust or otherNazi crimes. By agreement between the Israeli and Polish governments, the law was reworded to acknowledge some Polish misconduct, in exchange for a joint declaration by Polish government and IsraeliKnesset that many Poles committed "heroic" efforts "to save Jewish people." However, the museum, itself, argued the declaration "contains highly problematic wording that contradicts existing and accepted historical knowledge in this field," and harshly disparaged the deal, saying the agreement would stifle free research about the subject.[74]
In February 2020, Yad Vashem apologized for “inaccuracies” and “partial” facts that had been presented in Jerusalem at the previous month’s World Holocaust Forum (attended by Russian presidentVladimir Putin and other world leaders). The criticism alleged the program excessively emphasized Russia’s role in ending World War II, and suppressed information unpalatable to Russia's government.[75]
In 2020 plans to appointEffi Eitam to head the institutions have been criticized, due to alleged racist remarks made by the appointee.[76][77]
In summer 2023, a number of scholars, politicians and media figures have criticized Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu and Education MinisterYoav Kisch for an attempt to remove Yad Vashem ChairmanDani Dayan from his position, noting that this reduces the independence and hence, credibility, of the institution.[78][79]
Art gallery
Yad Vashem houses the world's largest collection of artwork produced by Jews and other victims of Nazi occupation in 1933–1945. The Yad Vashem Art Department supervises a 10,000-piece collection, adding 300 pieces a year, most of them donated by survivors' families or discovered in attics.[80] Included in the collection are works byAlexander Bogen,Alice Lok Cahana,Samuel Bak, andFelix Nussbaum.
Janusz Korczak and the Children, memorial to the educator and the children he refused to leave
Memorial to the Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust
The Memorial to the Deportees, aka "train monument", in memory of the Jews taken to the extermination camps by cattle cars
Valley of the (Destroyed) Communities, in memory of the Jewish communities of Europe which ceased to exist after the Holocaust
Prizes awarded by Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem awards the following book prizes:
Yad Vashem Prize for Children's Holocaust Literature
Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research, established in 2011 in memory of Abraham Meir Schwartzbaum, Holocaust survivor, and his family who was murdered in the Holocaust.[81] Since 2018 the prize is awarded in memory of Benny and Tilly Joffe z"l, Holocaust survivors, and their family who was murdered in the Holocaust.[82] It is awarded annually in recognition of high scholarly research and writing on the Holocaust.[83]
Sussman Prize for Paintings of theShoah. Recipients include:
In 1973, thePinkas HaKehillot (Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities) project of Yad Vashem was awarded theIsrael Prize, for its special contribution to society and the State.[87]
In 2003, Yad Vashem was awarded the Israel Prize, for lifetime achievement and its special contribution to society and the State.[88][89]
In September 2007, Yad Vashem received thePrince of Asturias Award for Concord.[90] The Prince of Asturias Awards are presented in eight categories. The Award for Concord is bestowed upon a person, persons, or institution whose work has made an exemplary and outstanding contribution to mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence among men, to the struggle against injustice or ignorance, to the defense of freedom, or whose work has widened the horizons of knowledge or has been outstanding in protecting and preserving mankind's heritage.
On 25 October 2007, Yad Vashem ChairmanAvner Shalev was awarded theLégion d'honneur for his "extraordinary work on behalf of Holocaust remembrance worldwide." French PresidentNicolas Sarkozy presented Shalev with the award in a special ceremony at theÉlysée Palace.
In 2011, Shalev received the City of Jerusalem's Patron of Jerusalem Award in recognition of his work in the city.[91]
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^Auron, Yair (2003). "The Israeli Academy and the Armenian Genocide".The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide. Rutgers University Press. pp. 217–225.ISBN0-7658-0834-X.
^Baer, Marc D. (2020).Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Writing Ottoman Jewish History, Denying the Armenian Genocide. Indiana University Press. pp. 126–127.ISBN978-0-253-04542-3.
^Kofi Annan commented at the opening, "The number of Holocaust survivors who are still with us is dwindling fast. Our children are growing up just as rapidly. They are beginning to ask their first questions about injustice. What will we tell them? Will we say, 'That's just the way the world is'? Or will we say instead, 'We are trying to change things—to find a better way'? Let this museum stand as a testimony that we are striving for a better way. Let Yad Vashem inspire us to keep striving, as long as the darkest dark stalks the face of the earth."Facing the Consequences of Dividing IsraelArchived 6 May 2006 at theWayback Machine
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