Mimi Ash

Expanding Horizons: The Visual Center Reaches New Audiences

Almost two years since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, there have now emerged unprecedented opportunities to bring films from the Film Collection to the small screen in many homes all over the globe. Over the past decade, Yad Vashem's Online Film Catalog has encouraged the public to view any number of its 13,300 registered films – from documentary pieces and original footage to witness testimony and blockbuster movies – all with a connection to the Holocaust.  Since it opened its... Continue reading

Creating Memory: When the Movie Cameras Came to the Death Camps

Although Allied governments from Moscow to Washington had reliable information about the wholesale slaughter of Jews going on in the death camps, as well as on the infamous "death marches," the liberation of the camps was not a strategic objective of the Allies, but a consequence of their military campaign. Between August 1944 and April 1945, Allied soldiers, together with camera teams, discovered Nazi German extermination camps in Poland and concentration camps in Germany. Contrary to common... Continue reading

In Search of Ladino. Restoration of Iconic Film Breathes New Life into Judeo-Spanish Culture

Some 525 years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the Spanish government has officially recognized Ladino as a Spanish language, in an attempt to preserve the language also known as "Judeo-Spanish." Ladino was one of the main tools used to create, disseminate and uphold the culture of Sephardic Jews for generations. Ladino was used in daily conversation, in commerce, in prayer and in Torah study; it was the language of poetry, song and culture, serving to coalesce different ethnic... Continue reading