About the Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
The Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection includes more than 27,000 items that were donated over the years by Holocaust survivors or their families, as well as artifacts received from various organizations in Israel and abroad.
Featured Artifacts
Artifacts donated to Yad Vashem, together with the personal stories behind them, play a significant role in commemorating the experiences of Jews in the Holocaust and preserving Holocaust memory for future generations.
From our Collection
Artifacts of Survivors that Symbolize the Moment of Liberation
At the end of the war, hundreds of thousands of Jews across Europe found themselves in a dire physical state and with nothing to their name. The first items they took, received or created became a symbol of the day of liberation.
Transnistria
The Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection houses many items that tell the story of the Jewish deportees incarcerated in the ghettos and camps of Transnistria.
New: Jewish Badges
Forcing the Jews to wear a distinctive sign was one of the tactics of harassment that enabled the Germans to recognize Jews as such on sight, and was designed to create a gulf between the Jews and the rest of the population.
Artifacts on Display in the Museum Complex
Artifacts in the Holocaust History Museum
The Holocaust History Museum tells the story of the Holocaust from a distinctive Jewish point of view using authentic artifacts, documents, testimonies, film footage, diaries, letters and artworks, emphasizing the personal stories of the victims of the Holocaust. The many and varied artifacts displayed along the path of the Museum demonstrate and highlight the personal stories of Jews who lived under Nazi occupation in Europe and North Africa during the Holocaust.
Artifacts in the Synagogue
“This Synagogue serves as a memorial to the destroyed synagogues of European Jewry. It will be a testimonial to the faith, to the rich spiritual world of European Jewry and to the extraordinary will of the Jewish people to survive, to remember and to rebuild.” (Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem at the dedication of the Synagogue, June 2005).
