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Chen Malul
05 March 2025
Rabbi Yoḥanan said: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to fools and children.
- Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 12b Our sages taught that with the destruction of the first temple, Divine prophecy was taken from the 'professional' prophets... Continue reading
- Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 12b Our sages taught that with the destruction of the first temple, Divine prophecy was taken from the 'professional' prophets... Continue reading
Chen Malul
02 March 2025
Shortly after his appointment as Foreign Minister in 1966, Abba Eban invited Moshe Raviv to serve as his political secretary. Upon taking office Eban decided to survey "foreign policy lines and our relationships with the nations of the world, region by region." The new Foreign Minister payed... Continue reading
Hannah Kaye, Orly Ohana
08 January 2025
Thomas Geve (1929 – 2024) was a Holocaust survivor from Germany. He survived Auschwitz, Gross Rosen and Buchenwald. He recorded his experiences in a series of nearly 80 drawings soon after the liberation and published a memoir in 1958. He gave testimony to groups at Yad Vashem and elsewhere.... Continue reading
Hannah Kaye
30 December 2024
Dr. Amy Williams is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research. I interviewed her about her time at Yad Vashem and her experience of being in Israel this year.
What brings you to Yad Vashem?
I was really lucky enough to... Continue reading
Hannah Kaye
17 November 2024
Today marks 30 days since the passing of esteemed international Holocaust researcher and Yad Vashem's Academic Advisor Professor Yehuda Bauer, Z"L, who passed away on Friday, 18 October 2024, in Jerusalem at the age of 98.
On the occasion of his shloshim, we have put together a collection... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
10 October 2024
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance in Jerusalem, send its heartfelt condolences to the family of Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert, z”l, who passed at the age of 100. Similar to many Holocaust survivors, Lily has, in recent years, made it her life’s mission to bear witness to the horrors of... Continue reading
Ashley Bartov
04 August 2024
During the Holocaust's darkest hours, Jews clung to nostalgic memories as their last refuge of humanity. Amidst the unimaginable horror, they retreated into mental sanctuaries of pre-war life—simple moments like buying groceries or enjoying entertainment without fear. These brief escapes were often... Continue reading
Inbal Kvity Ben-Dov
28 July 2024
Just yesterday, we received the official confirmation of what our hearts had quietly feared. Alex, you are no longer with us. It feels strange to speak of you in the past tense because you were always so present. Even after you were taken into captivity on that fateful dark day in October, we never... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
11 July 2024
To mark the launch of the new video-art wall installation, "122,499 Files" we sat down with the artist and producer Ran Slavin to explore the inspiration and depths behind his new creation, "122,499 Files." Yad Vashem has previously incorporated multimedia experiences, as... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
29 May 2024
In the heart of Hagenow, Germany, amidst cobblestone streets and historic buildings, lived a young Jewish toddler, Hanna Meinungen. Hagenow, once home to a vibrant Jewish community dating back to 1764, bore witness to the tumultuous events of history, including the tragic November 1938 Pogrom,... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
06 May 2024
In a world too often defined by narratives of devastation and animosity, Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, stands as a guiding light. It heralds the launch of the "Who Is Your Holocaust Hero?" campaign, inviting the public to reflect on this poignant occasion of Holocaust Martyrs... Continue reading
06 May 2024
Childhood scrapbooks, cherished baby books or albums, were a long-standing tradition in Central & Western Europe. These scrapbooks not only record the development of the child from birth to adolescence, they are tokens of affection lovingly crafted by parents for their offspring.
Yad Vashem,... Continue reading
Yifat Bachrach-Ron
28 March 2024
In 1941, after the German invasion of the Netherlands, 15-year-old Tsofia (Fieke) Langer-Asscher was forced to leave her school in Groningen and move with her mother Clara to Amsterdam, where she studied at an art school established for Jewish children. From March 1943, however, she was forced into... Continue reading
Hannah Kaye
19 March 2024
The holiday of Purim is approaching; traditionally one of the most joyous holidays in the Jewish calendar. It is said that when the Jewish month of Adar begins, we should "increase in happiness,"[1] but how do we relate to this imperative to be happier in times of trouble and in times of... Continue reading
Dr. Naama Shik
07 March 2024
"… I was saved by a young woman who was in as helpless a situation as the rest of us, and who nonetheless wanted nothing other than to help me. The more I think about the following scene, the more astonished I am about its essence, about someone making a free decision to save another person, in a... Continue reading
Sarah Levy
25 January 2024
How is it possible to actively engage teenagers from across the world to study the Holocaust? How can we encourage our youth to explore a historical event and be inspired by its stories of courage? And how do we provide a platform for students to showcase their own creativity?
The Overseas... Continue reading
Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg
22 January 2024
At the beginning of your journey at Yad Vashem, you expressed your trepidation but you still decided to go ahead. Why?
Because I’m a person who likes challenges, they interest me. It piques my curiosity to place myself in new situations – it rejuvenates me. In my creative process,... Continue reading
Amanda Smulowitz
14 January 2024
I've worked at Yad Vashem for almost 30 years. During that time, there have been many occasions when I have been surprised, touched or moved to tears – usually in the course of a special event or occasion, be it a unique reunion of the Kindertransport, the inauguration of Block 27 at Auschwitz, or... Continue reading
23 November 2023
On Thursday, 23 November 2023 Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan participated in the Rome-Jerusalem Emergency Summit on Global Antisemitism, an initiative organized by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs at the initiative of Senator Giuliomaria Terzu di Sant’Agata, President of the European Union... Continue reading
Dr. Yossi Kugler
13 November 2023
The phenomenon of antisemitism, sometimes termed "the longest hatred", has been in existence for 2,000 years in different cultures and parts of the world. Can distinct aspects of antisemitism be identified? Can one refer, for example, to the most extreme aspect of the phenomenon? Such as the racial... Continue reading
Jonathan Matthews
02 November 2023
The attacks on the Jewish population in Germany and Austria in November 1938 are commonly referred to in English (and in many other languages, but not in German) as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, alluding to the shattered windows of the many Jewish homes, synagogues, shops... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
08 October 2023
Yizkor has always been a prayer shrouded with emotion, drama and superstition for me. Older generations, including my parents, shooed us away as Yizkor was about to begin – fearful that we would be tainted from the sadness in the room or that our very presence would have morbid consequences. I well... Continue reading
Dani Dayan
21 September 2023
Holocaust survivors, Madam Speaker and members of the Seimas Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Abba Kovner, who grew up here in Vilnius, and emerged, soon after the start of the German occupation, as a leader of the Vilna ghetto’s partisan fighters, wrote in one of his... Continue reading
Hannah Kaye
17 August 2023
In the final blog of this series, we explore unique artistic endeavors that connected those who created them with their ancestors, while expressing the anguish and anticipation for an end to the maelstrom in which they were caught.
In their art, Holocaust survivors searched Jewish tradition for... Continue reading
Hannah Kaye
14 August 2023
In the third blog of this series, we examine how religious and communal leaders encouraged their dispirited and desperate congregations through ancient words of hope and faith in better times ahead. In so doing, they drew on the tradition of the midrashic form of biblical interpretation, making... Continue reading
Hannah Kaye
09 August 2023
In the second blog of this series, we look at how prayers were adapted by Jewish men and women to reflect their ongoing reality, as well as their hopes and dreams for the future.
The strategy of adapting a well-known Jewish text to the Holocaust era can be seen with Regina Honigman’s Passover... Continue reading
Hannah Kaye
06 August 2023
Observing the Jewish laws and festivals with all their accompanying traditions and customs was one facet of how Jews struggled to maintain their human spirit in the face of persecution and death during the Holocaust. Many found ways to celebrate the Jewish holidays and to observe aspects of Jewish... Continue reading
Shira Roth
09 June 2023
This week is #MuseumWeek and as today’s focus is on Artificial Intelligence I would like to share some of the work we have been doing at Yad Vashem, where by using state-of-the-art NLP and generative AI we are bringing victim memories and their stories once lost, back to life. The primary project... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
24 April 2023
This year's activities marking Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day began, as in year's past, with the Official State Opening Ceremony on the evening of 17 April 2023, with the participation of Holocaust survivors lighting the torches with members of their families and speaking... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
05 March 2023
Last year, Orli Hartstein, originally from Columbus, Ohio, volunteered at Yad Vashem for a year of national service in the Art Department of Yad Vashem's Museums Division. There, she helped catalog art pieces and conducted research about artists whose works are among the thousands of creations in... Continue reading
20 February 2023
The prestigious International Book Prize for Holocaust Research, in memory of Benny and Tilly Joffe, z”l was awarded on 29 December 2022 to Prof. Rebecca Clifford, professor of European and Transnational History at Durham University, England, for her book, Survivors: Children’s Lives After the... Continue reading
02 February 2023
Shlomo Perel was born in 1925 to a Jewish family in Germany. When he was eight years old, the Nazis came into power. Following the implementation of the Nuremberg laws, Shlomo was expelled from school, and in 1936, his family moved to Lodz, Poland. Following the Nazi invasion of... Continue reading
Liraz Lachmanovich
31 January 2023
In order to create an educational and value-based discourse that encourages discussion of the issues of coping with difficult circumstances, the human spirit and the complexity of moral dilemmas, the International School for Holocaust Studies recently launched a learning environment that deals with... Continue reading
16 January 2023
On 24 January 2023, Yad Vashem Chairman Dayan will be opening a new exhibition at the Bundestag together with Bundestag President H.E. Ms. Bärbel Bas. The exhibition, entitled "Sixteen Objects," was initiated by the German Society for Yad Vashem (... Continue reading
Dr. Sharon Kangisser Cohen, Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg
10 January 2023
The Eli and Diana Zborowski Centre for the Study of the Aftermath of the Holocaust and the Yad Vashem Art Museum recently hosted a research workshop on the topic of “The Postwar Period as Reflected through Art.”
In the months and years following their liberation, survivors of the Holocaust produced... Continue reading
Ofer Lifshitz
03 January 2023
Yad Vashem's unrivalled archives house a host of documents created on paper materials whose original purpose was strikingly different: personal diaries written on office forms; prayer arrangements on delivery certificates; poems and pieces of prose on medical prescriptions; a Klezmer satire on the... Continue reading
Liat Benhabib
28 December 2022
Girl Number 60427, a film by Shulamit Lifshitz and Oriel Berkovits from the Ma'aleh Film School in Jerusalem, has garnered the 2022 BAFTA Award in the Student Films category – the first Israeli film to win the prestigious award. The short film tells the fictional story of eleven-year-old "... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
15 December 2022
In the summer of 1940, Berlin police officers arrested 70-year-old Siegmund Dornbusch, because he had watched a film despite the fact that it was forbidden for Jews. His case clearly challenges the assumption that it was mostly young Jews who rebelled against Nazi orders.
Dornbusch’s story... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
05 December 2022
While investigating the deportation of dancers, Dr. Laure Guilbert, Fellow at Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research in the summer of 2022, became aware of aspects of the Holocaust unexplored in the history of ghettos and concentration camps: the role of dance... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
29 August 2022
At the end of WWII, when the extent of the mass murders that were the lot of the Jews in Europe and North Africa (and could have been that of the Yishuv in the Land of Israel) were revealed, Mordechai Shenhavi once again raised the idea of a national institution to commemorate the... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
18 August 2022
This month marks 80 years since the idea of Yad Vashem – the World Holocaust Remembrance Center – was proposed.
The establishment of an institution or site to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust was formulated back in the darkest days of World War II, in 1942, while the campaign of... Continue reading
Sarah Eismann
11 August 2022
"To be 'blessed' by God means to bestow blessings, goodness and loyalty – regardless of place or situation."
These words were the last that Regina Jonas wrote down in Thereseinstadt before she was deported to Auschwitz. In the spirit of this quote, Regina was a rabbi and pastor in Theresienstadt... Continue reading
27 July 2022
On Sunday, 24 July 2022, Holocaust survivor Dr. Janina Altman (née Hescheles) passed away. Janina's life story is displayed in Yad Vashem’s Holocaust History Museum in the chapter dealing with Żegota – the Council for Aid to Jews that was active in Nazi-occupied Poland. At the age of twelve, Janina... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
11 July 2022
In April 2022, the same week Jews all over the world observed Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, inaugurated a new Holocaust Educational Center in the south of Israel. This unique learning environment, entitled "Before My... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
10 July 2022
On the occasion of the visit of President Joe Biden, Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan will present the President of the United States of America with a replica of one of Moshe Perl's first drawings from after the end of World War II. This "Shiviti" plaque was created by the Holocaust survivor a few... Continue reading
22 June 2022
As part of his work as one of the founders of the postwar Central Jewish Historical Commission in Poland, Holocaust survivor Nachman Blumental, authored Slowa Niewinne (Innocent Words), a glossary of Nazi euphemisms. The Nazis upheld a deeply veiled language, which they used to hide their... Continue reading
02 June 2022
For many decades, Chana Jadwob’s wartime work permit remained on a shelf in her home amongst piles of other documents and photographs. Over the years, her daughter Shoshana Ofir asked her mother to tell her story of what she had experienced during the Shoah and how she survived; but Chana refused... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
26 May 2022
"I wanted to fill in the blanks about my family's history, that only they knew."
Dr. Isidore Zuckerbrod
Dr. Isidore Zuckerbrod, son of Holocaust survivors Dawid and Matylda Zuckerbrodt, and Renata Szyfner, daughter of Eugeniusz Szyfner and... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
28 April 2022
Yesterday, President of the Bundestag H.E. Ms. Bärbel Bas visited Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, accompanied by Speaker of the Israeli Knesset Mickey Levy. Together they toured the "Flashes of Memory: Photography during the Holocaust" exhibition and the Museum... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
07 April 2022
Some 120 Yad Vashem graduates from schools around Italy recently took part in an advanced online seminar entitled “Voices from the Ghetto.”
Part of a series of activities offered by Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies to deepen the knowledge of subjects related... Continue reading
06 April 2022
The Passover holiday is a commemoration and celebration, respectively, of the Israelites’ enslavement and freedom from Egypt. While slavery in Egypt and the Holocaust were two very different periods of trauma in Jewish history, the Jewish people appreciate their modern-day freedom and pray and hope... Continue reading
31 March 2022
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the perilous danger that many civilians are facing, Yad Vashem staff have opened their hearts to those seeking shelter in Israel. Several employees have volunteered to host Ukrainian refugees – often complete strangers – providing them with a safe, warm... Continue reading
21 March 2022
At Yad Vashem, individuals learn the fact-based stories of the Holocaust through its museums, International School for Holocaust Studies, publications, International Institute for Holocaust Research, and more. One example is that of Exodus – the saga of the refugee ship that for over seven... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
20 March 2022
Dr. Katrin Stoll is a German-born Holocaust historian, today residing in Warsaw. In the new volume of Yad Vashem Studies (49:2), she takes a fascinating look at her chance findings of deeply personal accounts in the archive carefully built by Holocaust survivor Nachman Blumental in the... Continue reading
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Mimi Ash
03 March 2022
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... Continue reading
28 December 2021
In this second installment of a two-part interview, Noga Schusterman, Head of the Restoration Section in Yad Vashem's Museums Division, explores the efforts made today in order to safeguard Yad Vashem's irreplaceable collections for the future.
What are the most unusual objects you have... Continue reading
27 December 2021
“I will always wait for you, wherever I am. My memory will always be with you, in whatever form it takes…
I do not believe in death – because my life is conducted by love…
But in wars – people’s fates are not in their hands…
We will not part – neither in life nor in... Continue reading
26 December 2021
Currently (2021), Yad Vashem's unrivalled Holocaust-era Collections include some 12,000 works of art and approximately 40,000 artifacts. While some are displayed in its museums and exhibitions, most are in storage, where the collections are kept in optimal conditions.
On receipt at the World... Continue reading
Dani Dayan
02 December 2021
Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was a despicable antisemite and ardent Nazi supporter. Nevertheless, the role he played in the Holocaust was marginal.
Inaugurated in 2005, Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum contains hundreds of Holocaust-era artifacts, photographs and artworks,... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
07 July 2021
During Avner Shalev's 27-year career at the helm of the Yad Vashem Directorate, he oversaw a complete transformation of global Holocaust remembrance, education, research and documentation. He created a new Museum Complex on the Mount of Remembrance, including the world-class Holocaust History... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
01 June 2021
The recent media coverage of the events that unfolded after Rutgers University condemned antisemitism, the University’s qualification of the condemnation, followed by the latest statement by the University president that condemned it again, but linked it to a series of other societal hatreds, is... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
09 April 2021
Despite the still-standing global restrictions on travel, over the course of Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day 2021, Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, reached hundreds of thousands of people around the world via its active social media and online presence. The... Continue reading
Yona Kobo
07 April 2021
Of the numerous narratives from the Holocaust told through the collections of Yad Vashem, those that relate how whole families were wiped off the face of the earth by the Nazis and their collaborators in a matter of hours are some of the most gut-wrenching accounts from the period. Indeed, though I... Continue reading
06 April 2021
Through painstaking research of its unrivalled collections of Holocaust-related artifacts and archival documents, Yad Vashem is not only able to tell the stories of Holocaust victims, but also to restore their identities, the very thing the Nazis worked so hard to eradicate. One such investigation... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
05 April 2021
The building blocks upon which we strive to reconstruct and understand the historical past, including the Holocaust, are primarily words; words supplemented with personal images and artifacts, which, in turn, we explain with words.
It was with words – and images – that the Nazis and their adherents... Continue reading
04 April 2021
Soon after the German invasion of Holland in May 1940, the Nazis began enacting anti-Jewish legislation. In order to avoid deportation to Germany for forced labor, Andries-Asher Hoffman decided to marry his fiancé Helene (Leni) in an expedited civil ceremony. They wed in a hospital in Amsterdam... Continue reading
Yona Kobo
26 January 2021
From the moment that WWII ended, Holocaust survivors had to begin to come to terms with the anguish of their newfound reality. Utterly destroyed by years of abuse, starvation, disease and the constant fear of death, the realization that most of them were all alone was the final blow. Yet, they hung... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
25 January 2021
On 27 January 1945, Soviet troops arrived at the "gates of hell." They could never have imagined the atrocities the Nazis had committed against other human beings during the Second World War. While the Red Army had already liberated other camps, such as Majdanek in July 1944, the scale of what they... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
24 January 2021
“I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger."
David wrote these words in his last letter, sent from Vilna in 1941. Today, 80 years after the 19-year-old was murdered during the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is fulfilling the last wishes of David and many... Continue reading
Nathalie Blau
22 January 2021
“We have found approximately one thousand Jewish children in Buchenwald. Please organize evacuation without delay."
This chilling message was dispatched by a US Army commander to the offices of the OSE Child Aid Society in Geneva during the liberation of Buchenwald in April 1945.
The troops... Continue reading
Prof. Dina Porat
14 January 2021
A slew of slogans, symbols and other uncommon sights accompanied the violent attack on the Capitol in Washington on January 6: the inscription "Auschwitz Camp" with a skull underneath, a drawing of the Capitol with a red Star of David suffocating it from all sides, the uploading of an image bearing... Continue reading
06 January 2021
Yad Vashem Special Twinning Project for Bar and Bat Mitzvah Youth
Forging a Connection to Jewish History
A Bar or Bat Mitzvah signifies the moment a child accepts his or her place as a Jewish individual and takes part in the fabric of the Jewish people. This landmark... Continue reading
Prof. Dina Porat
05 January 2021
Throughout the decades since WWII, and years of research and study into the annals of its horrors, fundamental questions have arisen regarding just how Yad Vashem should interpret the Holocaust, its events and its continued consequences for modern-day civilization. Over the past few months,... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett, Prof. Dan Michman
04 January 2021
Up until now we reviewed some aspects of the unprecedented and unique nature of the Holocaust. In this part we will further explore those qualities, as well as others that have precedents in human history, and the implications of both. Why is it important to try to discern what is new to the... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett, Prof. Dan Michman
03 January 2021
One can probably say about every historical event that it has elements that are rooted in the past and similarities with past events, and at the same time has elements that are new and unprecedented. Of course, the proportions of old and new, differ from event to event. For example, World War I,... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
31 December 2020
Yad Vashem's website in Arabic is complete with the fact-based historical narrative of the Holocaust, a wide range of online exhibitions designed to present personal stories from those who went through it, as well as educational materials available to the public in Arabic-speaking countries and... Continue reading
Nitza Shabtai-Melamed
17 December 2020
Three years ago, during one of his training sessions on the Donets River in southeastern Poland, the Olympic kayaker and canoeist Dariusz Popiela spotted the remains of a cemetery along the riverbank. As history buff, Popiela approached the site and discovered a visible tombstone and other broken... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
14 December 2020
A menorah, a special candleholder for nine candles, is lit during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah – also known as the “the festival of lights” – as a reminder of the miraculous defeat of the tiny indigenous Jewish nation over their mighty Greek occupiers in 160 BCE. On entering the holy Temple, the... Continue reading
Dr. Haim Gertner
03 December 2020
Last year, I received a letter from Steve Gamester, a well-known documentary filmmaker and director requesting my professional assistance on a project entitled "The Last Holocaust Survivors." In honor of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and... Continue reading
09 November 2020
In light of the current Coronavirus pandemic, this year's 82nd anniversary for The November Pogrom was conducted virtually. The Presidents of Israel, Germany and Austria in cooperation with Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, marked this occasion with an event which took place... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
04 November 2020
"My story of the Holocaust is different from most stories you have heard. One-and-a-half-million children were murdered for no other reason other than they were Jewish. I stayed alive. That makes me very different from one-and-a-half-million others."
So began Holocaust survivor Rena Quint... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
02 November 2020
How can we understand the responses of the Vatican to the persecution and murder of the Jews during WWII? Should we consider them as a guilty silence and a moral failure, or rather a strategic policy – aimed at rescuing Jews? These are just some of the questions analyzed in the most recent... Continue reading
28 October 2020
Sandra Rosenfeld Katz has worked at Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies for over a decade, and the last five years within the e-Learning Department. An ed-tech specialist fluent in several languages, Katz has, alongside e-Learning Department Director Dr. Naama Shik, headed the... Continue reading
21 October 2020
One of the four pillars of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is collecting Holocaust documentation. For close to seven decades, Yad Vashem has dedicated itself to gathering of primary source papers and records from the period of the Holocaust. These documents are housed in the... Continue reading
Dr. Ella Florsheim
19 October 2020
“When one wants to achieve great things, one cannot shy away from responsibility."
Rabbi Shaul Weingort in a letter to Schabse Frenkel, July 18, 1945
Shortly before WWII broke out, Shaul Weingort (1914-1946), a young Polish rabbi, arrived in Switzerland. Although only in his mid-... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett, Iris Rosenberg
15 October 2020
Recently, Facebook declared a readiness to "update their hate speech policy to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust." This is a very significant change in policy that should be applauded, but it also should be recognized that to implement it effectively entails many challenges... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett, Richelle Budd Caplan
25 September 2020
The late Holocaust scholar and survivor Professor Israel Gutman, a founder of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and author of the first Israeli textbook for teaching the Holocaust, used to say that the Holocaust refuses... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
24 September 2020
In this final segment of an interview regarding the English-language version "The Jewish Underground Press in Warsaw," Academic Editor Dr. Tikva Fatal-Knaani recalls some of the challenges and unusual discoveries she encountered while working on the project.
How did the ideological... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
14 September 2020
The creators of the underground press Sought to correct injustices, and presented the Jewish public with a purpose and content for its existence. With the discovery of the "Oyneg Shabes" Archives and other sources, Yad Vashem experts began the arduous work of deciphering and... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
14 September 2020
Established by the occupying Germans in October 1940, the Warsaw ghetto was the largest of its kind during WWII, with some 450,000 Jewish men, women and children incarcerated there at its peak in extremely overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Within the ghetto, their lives oscillated... Continue reading
20 August 2020
After five months of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Yad Vashem reopened this week to the Israeli public. Visitors can once again tour through the Holocaust History Museum, free of charge, after making a reservation in advance. They can also access the many famous and more intimate monuments... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
18 August 2020
Today, seventy-five years after the end of World War II, the Israeli Air Force, under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin, participated in a joint commemorative flypast mission together with the German Air Force over the skies of the notorious Dachau concentration camp. The flypast is part of... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
28 July 2020
The memory of the Holocaust is a huge puzzle with many black holes. Each hole represents the personal stories of people – men, women and children – who were murdered simply because of the faith into which they were born. Yad Vashem continues to work alongside other Holocaust institutions to... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
16 July 2020
A short time after publishing her memoir, In Search of Light, Holocaust survivor Martha Salcudean died on July 17, 2019 in Canada. I do not know whether Martha ever met Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook and author of the international bestseller Lean In. Although Martha could have... Continue reading
14 July 2020
While Philadelphia Eagles football player DeSean Jackson waits until it becomes safe to travel and visit Holocaust memorial sites and museums, we extend him, and the general public, an invitation to explore the online content about the Holocaust presented by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust... Continue reading
Nathalie Blau
13 July 2020
Part II (See Blog "The Artifacts at Yad Vashem: Silent Witnesses to the Shoah” part I)
After almost four decades of hiding in the shadows, artifacts now play an important role in providing testimony and attesting to the events that occurred during the Holocaust. The Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection... Continue reading
Nathalie Blau
12 July 2020
Some 34,000 items, large and small, fill the drawers and shelves of Yad Vashem's Artifacts Collection. A number of them are on display at the Holocaust History Museum, others at the Yad Vashem Synagogue, and some are used for temporary exhibitions in Israel and around the world. But whether on... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
09 July 2020
At the end of WWII, approximately half of the Jewish population of Budapest had survived the onslaught of Nazi occupation and the fierce fighting surrounding the Soviet conquest of the city – the largest rescue of a Jewish community in all of Europe. All this had taken place in just under a... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
06 July 2020
Among its recent acquisitions, the Yad Vashem Library – the most comprehensive collection of published material about the Holocaust – counts two unique publications that highlight the wide variety of ways in which private individuals have dedicated themselves to bringing new narratives to a... Continue reading
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Richelle Budd Caplan
02 July 2020
In a recent New York Times article entitled, In Germany, Confronting Shameful Legacy Is Essential Part of Police Training, the authors presented how Germany today ensures that its police force cannot be used to once again oppress, arrest and murder an entire segment of the... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
30 June 2020
For more than 75 years, no one knew what had happened to Moshe Reicher. All traces of him were lost one day in 1944 when he simply vanished. Now, thanks to a comprehensive archival investigation conducted both at Yad Vashem and in Italy, Moshe's fate has finally been revealed.
Moshe Reicher was... Continue reading
23 June 2020
"And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (Yad Vashem) ... that shall not be cut off."
(Isaiah 56:5)
This verse from the Book of Isaiah embodies Yad Vashem's Names Recovery mission. Each and every Holocaust victim had both a name and a story, just like... Continue reading
22 June 2020
In the first part of this interview Dr. Corneila Shati-Geissler, Director of the Deportation of Jews Project of the International Institute for Holocaust Research, explored the evolution of the project. Dr. Shati-Geissler will now discuss current challenges to the project, how Yad Vashem is making... Continue reading
21 June 2020
The story of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question” is one that required great planning, finances and meticulous implementation by the Nazis. The deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over Europe to the notorious killing sites “in the East” needed to be coordinated. Yad Vashem'... Continue reading
Mimi Ash
18 June 2020
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... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
16 June 2020
To mark the occasion of Anne Frank Day 2020, observed on what would have been her 91st birthday, the Anne Frank Zentrum and the Society of Friends of Yad Vashem in Germany co-sponsored a video interview with Jewish resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor Zvi Aviram. For years, Aviram has been... Continue reading
Dr. David Silberklang
12 June 2020
At a German physicians conference held in Bad Krynica in occupied Poland in October 1941, amidst a raging spotted fever epidemic in the Warsaw ghetto that was spreading beyond the ghetto walls, the head of the German Public Health Division of the General Government, Dr. Jost Walbaum, suggested to... Continue reading
11 June 2020
Special Twinning Project for Bar and Bat Mitzvah Youth
"Here too you are enveloped in love and friendship.
Remain loyal to your people, even when times are hard…" These words were written in a special album that Jiri Bader's friends created for him on the occasion of his Bar... Continue reading
Remain loyal to your people, even when times are hard…" These words were written in a special album that Jiri Bader's friends created for him on the occasion of his Bar... Continue reading
10 June 2020
The Holocaust was not simply the unprecedented attempt to systematically annihilate the Jewish people, it also represents the total breakdown of morality and behavioral norms. Previously perceived impossible notions became a matter of public policy. This new reality affected nearly all sectors of... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
08 June 2020
In her epic short story "Tell Me a Riddle", American-Jewish author Tillie Olsen writes, "Heritage. How have we come from our savage past, how no longer to be savages – this to teach. To look back and learn what humanizes – this to teach. To smash all ghettos that divide us – not to go back – this... Continue reading
31 May 2020
"In memory of the good deeds you performed for us. Signed, 36 young women liberated from Auschwitz."
This moving letter of gratitude was tucked inside a handmade wallet created for Yehuda Rubashevsky, a soldier in the Red Army who was among the liberators of Auschwitz. Today the wallet and letter... Continue reading
27 May 2020
Of the million plus visitors to Yad Vashem every year (bar the Corona-induced shutdown), many are unaware that within its famed Museum Complex is a beautiful Synagogue. Alongside its identity as a functioning house of worship, the Yad Vashem Synagogue serves as another symbol of the destruction of... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
24 May 2020
A striking black and white photograph of the 1945 Shavuot prayer service in the liberated Buchenwald camp in Germany hangs in Yad Vashem’s Holocaust History Museum. One of the youngest survivors in the picture is Israel Meir "Lulek" Lau, who was just eight years old when Buchenwald was liberated by... Continue reading
Yona Kobo
23 April 2020
Throughout the Holocaust, in the shadow of their unprecedented persecution by the German Nazi regime and their collaborators, there were Jews who endeavored to save their fellow Jews – often beyond their immediate family or acquaintances. The conditions for rescue were not always ripe and the... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
22 April 2020
This blog was originally published in the Times of Israel.
Part Three: From Summer 1944 through the Soviet Conquest of Budapest and after
During the Holocaust, Jewish activists in Slovakia and Hungary as well as across much of Nazi occupied territories in Europe and... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
21 April 2020
Holocaust survivor Tswi Herschel has spoken to many groups over the years, especially in Yad Vashem, but on Yom Hashoah 5780, he was “Zoom Bombed” as he began relating his personal story. His testimony presentation, organized by the Israeli embassy in Berlin, was on 20 April 2020 – ironically the... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
20 April 2020
This blog was originally published in the Times of Israel
Part Two: Confronting the Full Force of Destruction – Spring 1944
During the Holocaust there were many Jews who acted at great risk to themselves to help save fellow Jews in danger. Many of these figures are relatively unknown... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
19 April 2020
In this blog and in two subsequent blogs, I will address the figure Peretz Revesz and how he helped save fellow Jews in Hungary during the Holocaust. This blog was originally published in the Times of Israel
Part One: From Slovakian Zionist Youth leader to Hungarian Rescue Activist
I never... Continue reading
Prof. Dan Michman
15 March 2020
In early February 2020, Yad Vashem issued a media release from the undersigned—head of the International Institute of Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem—containing a clarification about factual inaccuracies and deficiencies in the illustrative videos shown at an event at Yad Vashem on 23 January 2020... Continue reading
08 March 2020
"We must all be everlasting witnesses to the past."
American astronaut Jessica Meir is on a 7 month mission aboard the International Space Station. From space, Jessica has sent a special message to ensure that the events and meaning of the Holocaust are never forgotten and stay relevant to our... Continue reading
Prof. Dan Michman
03 February 2020
Two weeks ago, on January 23, a major international event took place at Yad Vashem at the initiative of The World Holocaust Forum Foundation. This important event sought to strengthen Holocaust memory and to promote action to confront the recent worrying tide of antisemitic incidents. Unfortunately... Continue reading
Hannah Kaye
16 October 2019
I recently attended a special tour of the Holocaust History Museum that focused on the struggle to observe Jewish Holidays during the Holocaust. Most of the tour participants had previously visited Yad Vashem, and were making a repeat visit in order to learn more about this particular aspect of the... Continue reading
26 June 2019
"Now my darling, we bid you farewell. I don't know if we will meet again in this life. Pray to the good Lord to be merciful with us, because we can't endure this situation for long…"
On 26 June 1944 - 75 years ago - Bracha Igaz and her five children were deported to Auschwitz, where they... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
19 June 2019
In Israel, the topic of the Holocaust is discussed often, both in the family of Holocaust survivors, and in wider society. Tamar Doron studied about the Holocaust in school, participated in annual Holocaust Remembrance Day and other commemorative ceremonies, and heard her mother, Genia, talk about... Continue reading
17 June 2019
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is commemorating 80 years since the Kindertransport with a new display of rare artifacts which belonged to children who escaped Nazi Germany on the eve of the Holocaust.
From December 1938 until the outbreak of World War II on 1 September... Continue reading
Sheryl Silver Ochayon
16 May 2019
“An 11-year-old Tennessee girl who told her classmates to stop making the Nazi salute was sent to the principal’s office.” This was the headline of an article that appeared on the internet yesterday.
The principal and the teachers at the school thought this fifth-grade girl was being “disrespectful... Continue reading
05 May 2019
Senior Historian at Yad Vashem Dr. Robert Rozett recently appeared on the US-based Ben Shapiro Show to discuss the topics of Holocaust remembrance and contemporary antisemitism.
Ben Shapiro: "Yad Vashem is the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. A senior historian there... Continue reading
11 April 2019
Marking the highly anticipated landing on the moon by the Beresheet spacecraft, Yad Vashem – the World Holocaust Remembrance Center – reflects upon the drawing "Moon Landscape", created by 13-year old Peter Ginz while he was incarcerated in the Theresienstadt ghetto.
When Beresheet – which was... Continue reading
10 April 2019
"Yesterday (Tuesday, 9/4/19) our dear and important friend Yehoshua Eibeshitz passed away. He was a Holocaust Survivor from Poland who dedicated his life to remembering and researching the Holocaust. He published many books, started the The Hedva Eibeshitz Institute of Holocaust Studies in... Continue reading
25 March 2019
It isn't that common to sum up the history of an organization as robust and established as Yad Vashem with the experiences of one person. Yet, for 62 years, Clara Gini has been an integral part of the fabric of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center's work. She has seen it grow from a small... Continue reading
07 March 2019
Marking Women's History Month, Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is promoting a moving online exhibition entitled The Death March to Volary, depicting the terrible fate of over 1,000 Jewish women who were forced on a horrific death march in the winter of 1945.
"The Death March to... Continue reading
06 January 2019
This month a special event took place at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, with survivor Lion "Bob" Rubin who escaped with his family from Germany to England just days before World War II broke out.
Yad Vashem received a suitcase - used by Bob's sister Daisy during her journey on... Continue reading
09 December 2018
Gizi Fleischmann, Anna Braude Heller, and Luba Bielicka – these are the names of three Jewish women who worked selflessly and tirelessly to save fellow Jews during the Holocaust. The stories of these women and others were given pride of place at a recent seminar held at Yad Vashem, entitled "If... Continue reading
Yuval Lev
04 December 2018
Over the summer, Yad Vashem's International Relations Division welcomed a number of young interns eager to help out during a busy time. During the course of their stay, they had an opportunity both to contribute meaningfully to Holocaust education and commemoration, and to learn more about the... Continue reading
Nathalie Blau
19 November 2018
The story of Charlotte Salomon, a Jewish painter of German origin who fled to France in the 1940s, is upsetting and provocative, which makes it also fascinating. This was a journey filled with personal drama, which merges into the depravity of a world in agony during WWII. What is most interesting... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
12 November 2018
"It is vital to learn about the lives of individual people before the war, not just as victims of the Holocaust. We must understand how to deal with diversity and complexities in society. I came here to find new and effective tools for teaching today's youth about the Holocaust and its relevance... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
31 October 2018
Over the years, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev has emphasized the importance of effective Holocaust education. In 1993, Shalev established the International School for Holocaust Studies and positioned it to become the foremost global educational entity promoting Holocaust education around the... Continue reading
Simmy Allen
10 October 2018
There was not a dry eye in the room, but the tears were not of sadness or suffering. Rather, they were of joy and optimism for a shared future. So moved by the scene, Frieda Kliger remarked: "My dreams have now come true." Frieda was one of some 80 Holocaust survivors who gathered this week at Yad... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
23 September 2018
There is a strong trend in Hungary today to present the destruction of Hungarian Jewry during the Holocaust as an exclusively German crime and, except for a small group of Hungarian thugs, to ignore the role and responsibility of the Hungarian authorities and society. Against this background, the... Continue reading
06 September 2018
When I walk through the museum at Yad Vashem, I read posters written in my native language, from 1933, which talk about how the German Race is superior to all other races.
When I listen to the speeches of Hitler, held in front of cheering crowds in 1940, talking about how the Jews are parasites... Continue reading
Mimi Ash
30 July 2018
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... Continue reading
Heidi Omlor
23 July 2018
Since 2005, some 50,000 educators and community leaders have received training in "Echoes & Reflections," a multimedia program that empowers middle and high school educators with dynamic classroom materials and professional development to enable them to confidently teach about the Holocaust.... Continue reading
Marta Marzańska Mishani
11 July 2018
On one of the last days of November 1941, during the days of the Aktion in the Koźminek ghetto in the Wartheland when the Nazis murdered most of the Jewish population in gas vans, Avigdor Boym, a member of the ghetto’s Judenrat, said to Yehoshua Eibshitz:
"I knew this would happen… Don’t forget to... Continue reading
28 June 2018
Holocaust survivor Krysia Stopnicki finally got to hold a cherished possession that once belonged to her mother. Krysia is one of the few Jewish children born in the Lodz ghetto who miraculously survived. In spite of the grueling conditions in the ghetto, Kyrsia's father Jacob gave her mother Tania... Continue reading
Rabbi Moshe Cohn
19 April 2018
"Their story will no longer be a 10-year saga/ It will become a story of a lifetime/ For them/ And for us/ And maybe/ Being a survivor/ Will no longer mean years of being a victim Instead/ Being a survivor/ will mean a lifetime of strength."
From the journal of Fruma Zlatapolsky, participant in... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
27 March 2018
"Be humane, have respect for others and help if you can." This is the legacy that Arthur Schmidt learned from his grandfather, Arthur Schmidt (Sr.), who, together with his wife Paula, courageously risked his life to save Jewish children during the Holocaust.
This month, the Schmidt family... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
27 February 2018
The Jewish holiday of Purim is celebrated every year on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Adar (around February/March). The holiday celebrates the salvation of the Jewish people during the time of Ancient Persia from the evil Haman who plotted to murder all of the Jews, according to the Biblical... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
31 January 2018
The emotions and excitement at Israel Space Week yesterday were palpable. Meeting with Rona Ramon, widow of Israeli Astronaut Ilan Ramon z"l, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev remarked: "Today we come full circle."
Shalev had just presented Rona with a copy of "Moon Landscape," the now... Continue reading
Orit Noiman
17 December 2017
“For many years, I ignored anything that had to do with the Holocaust, even though I’m a Holocaust survivor. As I grew older, and especially in recent decades, I felt the need to document what I experienced… During the interview, they made me feel as if I were the only person on earth, and they... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
06 December 2017
Twinning Program Connects British Schoolgirl to the Fate and Family of Young Holocaust Victim
Two years ago, British schoolgirl Victoria Sarah Galia Caplin began a journey whose ending she could never have imagined. Just before her Bat Mitzvah in the summer of 2015, she and her parents... Continue reading
Sara Berkowitz
21 November 2017
Nika Kohn Fleissig's remarkable Shoah survival story recently took another unexpected detour. At 97 years old, Fleissig's outstanding strength of character and determined personality allowed her to act on impulse and fly from Arizona, USA to Israel, in order to visit Yad Vashem.
Her objective was... Continue reading
28 September 2017
Aryeh Louis Zuckerman was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1900. His father, Shimon Zuckerman, was the rabbi of Poznan, but after the death of his father, Aryeh, only six years old at the time, went to live with his uncle. In 1924, Aryeh immigrated to Brussels, and began working as a... Continue reading
18 September 2017
Judaism revolves around the observance and celebration of life cycle events and holidays. During the course of the calendar year, Jews observe special days with the purpose of connecting to their cherished heritage. Throughout history, however, surges in antisemitism sometimes forced Jews to mark... Continue reading
"Superficial Knowledge Can be Catastrophic". Swedish Educators Attend Teachers Seminar at Yad Vashem
Leah Goldstein
17 September 2017
"I grew up in a pretty normal family – a mother and five siblings – but in a xenophobic environment. My older brother was in the neo-Nazi movement, my mother was a xenophobe, my grandfather was a Nazi in the 1940s. That is my family story."
So recalled Peter Sundin, a participant of a recent... Continue reading
Leah Goldstein
05 September 2017
Over the months of June-August 2017, Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies welcomed a number of young interns eager to help out in preparing materials and organizing seminars, and looking forward to learning more about the World Center for Holocaust Remembrance in return.... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
07 August 2017
When the Holocaust History Museum was being planned in the early 2000s, the curators decided to set aside a space to replicate a typical living room in the home of a Jewish German family from before the war. "Yad Vashem uses artifacts displayed throughout its Museums Complex to tell individual... Continue reading
Marisa Fine
06 July 2017
A bar mitzvah is a rite of passage that every Jewish boy experiences at the age of 13, as they enter into adulthood. It is a special and significant experience that many Jewish children were unable to enjoy in Nazi-occupied Europe as the Germans forbade any practice of religion. Henry Oster was one... Continue reading
25 June 2017
Yad Vashem's vast and unique collections of artifacts from the period of the Holocaust consist of various personal items from Holocaust victims and survivors. These items are essential tools that help convey the narrative of the Holocaust from a personal perspective and disclose the stories of... Continue reading
26 March 2017
Last year, Tina Rosenstein and her husband Marcel toured Yad Vashem with their two sons, Eric and Sean, in honor of Sean's bar mitzvah. However, due to a recent extraordinary discovery by staff in Yad Vashem's Artifacts Department, the family learned that a small silver powder compact that once... Continue reading
Prof. Dan Michman
02 March 2017
Some 25 years ago, the issue of the Jewish refugees during the Nazi period occupied a relatively central place in Holocaust research. Although the topic did not disappear completely, Holocaust research in the years afterward increasingly focused on the persecutors and the mass murder during the “... Continue reading
02 February 2017
Searching for the Identity of the Owner of a Pendant Found in Sobibór
For over a decade, Yad Vashem has coordinated excavations at the site of the former Nazi extermination camp, Sobibór. The excavations are conducted by Wojciech Mazurek (Poland), Israel Antiquities Authority researcher and... Continue reading
13 December 2016
"I grew up believing that we had no family, that everyone was murdered in Poland…Thanks to Yad Vashem, we discovered that we are not alone"
Henia Moskowitz Borenstein Sisters Henia and Rywka Borenstein went through life believing they were alone. Their parents had died when they were young,... Continue reading
Henia Moskowitz Borenstein Sisters Henia and Rywka Borenstein went through life believing they were alone. Their parents had died when they were young,... Continue reading
22 November 2016
Emotions flowed earlier this week during a heartfelt ceremony at Yad Vashem. Participants travelled near and far to attend a special ceremony posthumously honoring Joseph and Marie Andries from Belgium as Righteous Among the Nations. Aside from the importance of recognizing and giving thanks to... Continue reading
20 November 2016
Last week, Yad Vashem had the honor of welcoming six survivors who were passengers on the SS St. Louis, the ocean liner that departed Hamburg in May 1939 carrying hundreds of German Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. To the passengers' dismay the over 900 passengers, many of them Jewish, were denied entry... Continue reading
15 September 2016
This year's Yad Vashem Leadership Mission was comprised of Second Generation supporters, as well as a significant number of members of the next generations. On their return home, Yad Vashem sought to understand the motivation of the younger participants for joining the Mission, as well as their... Continue reading
14 July 2016
Mark Moskowitz is the son of Holocaust survivors and a longstanding friend of Yad Vashem. Mark is actively involved in various Yad Vashem activities and events in Israel and the United States. He was a participant of this year's Yad Vashem Leadership Mission, traveling to Poland to view the lost... Continue reading
07 July 2016
The Yad Vashem Leadership Mission began yesterday in Poland. The Mission brings together Yad Vashem's friends and leaders from around the world to explore prewar Jewish life in Europe, reflect on the past, present and future, and connect to one another and to Yad Vashem.
In Poland, the Mission will... Continue reading
Avner Shalev
07 July 2016
This week, we mourn the death of Elie Wiesel, z"l. His passing not only saddens and fills us with a sense of loss. It also constitutes a painful milestone in the gradual transition to an era and world lacking live personal Shoah testimony.
Elie was an exceptionally gifted witness of the... Continue reading
Elie was an exceptionally gifted witness of the... Continue reading
Sam Gelman
26 May 2016
"Never forget" is a motto synonymous with Holocaust remembrance and education. Time and again, we are reminded that we can never allow ourselves or the world to forget about the Holocaust and the six million Jews murdered by the German Nazis and their collaborators. We have heard numerous survivor... Continue reading
09 May 2016
Kristine Johansson-Smith, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor from Riga, Latvia, grew up never knowing what her maternal grandmother, Ita Rochel Aronstein, looked like. Kristine's mother, Ruta Johansson-Aronstein, born in 1936, was only five years old when the Nazis occupied Latvia. The young Ruta... Continue reading
Alana Luttinger
14 March 2016
For the past four months I have been an intern at Yad Vashem in the International Relations Division. Before this internship, I had been to Yad Vashem twice: once with my family, and once with Birthright. During both of these trips, I only saw a small portion of what Yad Vashem had to offer. But... Continue reading
21 February 2016
Yad Vashem mourns the loss of Samuel Willenberg, one of the last survivors of the German Nazi death camp Treblinka, who passed away at the age of 93. Willenberg, a renowned artist and author, escaped Treblinka during a revolt in August 1943. Together with other survivors, he became an outspoken... Continue reading
28 January 2016
When the Warsaw ghetto was established in October 1940, Mieczyslaw Ferster, a Jewish engineer who happened to be tall and blond, was begged by his friends not to report to the German occupying authorities. Stating that he would "go where his people will go," Mieczyslaw, his wife Janina (née... Continue reading
25 January 2016
Recently, Yad Vashem was honored to host Wlodek Tabaczynski and his daughter Zosia, who had come to see the incredible restoration work carried out on the wartime diary of Wlodek's father, Stefan (né Alfred Zielony).
Alfred Zielony was born in 1897 in Warsaw, the youngest child in a Jewish family.... Continue reading
Adina Schreiber
15 December 2015
Growing up I was very fortunate to come to Israel on many occasions. Every trip was full of museums, hikes, fun activities and, without fail, a trip up to Haifa to visit my grandfather's cousin, Dudu, as well as a visit to the cemetery where my grandfather's family is buried. As you can imagine... Continue reading
Michal Dror
10 December 2015
On the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Kristallnacht progrom ("Night of the Broken Glass") raged throughout Germany and Austria.
Kristallnacht was launched in supposed retaliation for the assassination of a Nazi German embassy official in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, by a frustrated... Continue reading
02 December 2015
"My father must have had a cape hanging in his closet. He was not a superhero, but when he needed to, he put that cape on."
Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, of the 422nd Infantry Regiment in the US Armed Forces, passed away in 1985. Pastor Chris Edmonds, his younger son, recalls that his father... Continue reading
19 November 2015
It was a very emotional meeting today at the Yad Vashem Archives as Yad Vashem staff met with relatives, friends, researchers and historians who have been investigating the fate of 14-year-old Rywka Lipszyc.
Born in 1929 to a rabbinical family, Rwyka, kept a diary while she was... Continue reading
Born in 1929 to a rabbinical family, Rwyka, kept a diary while she was... Continue reading
10 November 2015
This is yet another incredible and unexpected story of a family reunited as a result of documentation found in Yad Vashem's Archives. Pages of Testimony are an excellent tool in filling in the missing pieces of family histories and uniting a family that was dispersed because of the Holocaust.... Continue reading
09 November 2015
Among the pictures in Yad Vashem's extensive Photo Archive is one dated July 1945. Alan Golub, donated the photo of a group of young Hungarian women, whom he helped clothe, to Yad Vashem in 1999 with the women's names carefully written on the back. He also donated a thank-you note he received from... Continue reading
05 November 2015
Interview with Rex Bloomstein
"Just before his execution in 1941, the famous Jewish historian Simon Dubnow told his fellow inmates in the Riga ghetto 'Yidn, shraybt un farshraybt (Jews, write and record).' My life's mission has been 'Film and Record.'"
So explained acclaimed... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
27 October 2015
"A Scholar of Tremendous Depth and Breadth"
Yesterday evening, I heard the sad news that my dear friend and colleague Professor David Cesarani of Royal Holloway in London had passed away unexpectedly. David was a scholar of tremendous depth and breadth, great brilliance and... Continue reading
Prof. Dina Porat
21 October 2015
It is a well-documented and undisputable fact that many years before his rise to power, Adolf Hitler was already obsessed by the notion that the Jews constituted an existential danger to the humankind, and thus world Jewry needed to be eliminated at all costs.
This ideology began to be formed by... Continue reading
08 October 2015
This first in a series of Q &As with Yad Vashem staff, takes a behind-the-scenes look at the Reference and Information Services Department of the Archives Division. Department Director Lital Beer gives an overview of the their current challenges and accomplishments.
Why was... Continue reading
Why was... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
10 September 2015
In spring 1938, on the heels of five years of persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany that had recently extended to newly annexed Austria, it was clear that Europe, and the world, were in the throes of a severe refugee crisis. The term "refugee crisis" was essentially a euphemism, since it was not an... Continue reading
10 September 2015
Ushering in the beginning of the Jewish New Year, a special online exhibition has been uploaded to Yad Vashem's website . "Marking the New Year" features approximately 50 items from Yad Vashem's collections, including greeting cards, documents, religious artifacts and testimonies - all relating to... Continue reading
Deborah Berman
03 September 2015
Monique Keppler, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, recently submitted to Yad Vashem some 400 names of her extended family members who were murdered in the Shoah. Through extensive genealogical research, Keppler traced her family line back several hundreds of years. However, when it came to the... Continue reading
25 August 2015
Every year, Yad Vashem creates a calendar for the Jewish New Year. This year's calendar focuses on "The Return to Life," emphasizing Jewish life in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps after the war. Included in the calendar are emotive black and white images from the Yad Vashem Archives, portraying... Continue reading
26 July 2015
Israeli basketball player and NBA star, Omri Caspi brought a delegation of American NBA basketball players to visit Yad Vashem today for the first time. Visiting with Caspi are his Sacramento Kings teammates, Rudy Gay, Demarcus Cousins, and Caron Butler as well as Chandler Parsons of the Dallas... Continue reading
Deborah Berman
09 July 2015
This year's annual 35th International Conference on Jewish Genealogy – held in Jerusalem every decade - turned out to provide a remarkable moment for IAJGS participant Susan Edel, a dedicated genealogist from Petah Tikva, Israel. During a lecture she attended given by Dr. Haim Gertner, Director of... Continue reading
25 June 2015
Yad Vashem Publications' new release, Tin Soldier in a Cardboard Box, by Ari Livne is a coming-of-age story that reflects great pain, but also optimism as to the human ability to survive.
Born in Vienna, Henri's (Ari Livne) life changed irrevocably when he was eight years old. After... Continue reading
10 June 2015
Yesterday, Yad Vashem's annual awards for commitment and excellence in the field of holocaust education were awarded in a moving ceremony. The Edmond J. Safra Auditorium was filled to capacity with students, teachers, parents, educators, Holocaust survivors and their families.
The Lifetime... Continue reading
Heather Gillies
04 June 2015
A few weeks ago, I met Rina Quint, a child survivor of the Holocaust. That morning I had the privilege of hearing her story, and through the Twinning program at Yad Vashem I was able interview her personally. My name is Heather Gillies, and I'm a student from San Diego studying for a semester at... Continue reading
James Joseph McIntosh
31 May 2015
A seminar on Holocaust studies for a group of academics from Turkey has generated some exceptional and diverse educational activities just one year later. In June 2014, the International School for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem, in cooperation with the Aladdin Project, organized a first-of-a-... Continue reading
Elysha Varenbut
14 May 2015
My name is Elysha Varenbut and I am from Toronto, Ontario. Currently I am spending a semester in Jerusalem studying at Hebrew University. I began volunteering at Yad Vashem this year, and met Holocaust survivor Berthe Badehi one day while listening to her special story. I instantly felt connected... Continue reading
07 May 2015
A local public school in North Carolina, U.S.A concluded an intensive year-long research project where students worked diligently to return a Holocaust-era letter to living relatives of the writer.
Professor Todd Singer's American History class at the East Henderson High School embarked... Continue reading
Professor Todd Singer's American History class at the East Henderson High School embarked... Continue reading
Yiftach Ashkenazy
27 April 2015
Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day in Israel is a day that usually focuses on the memory of the Holocaust in Israel, however this year I wanted to highlight the work that has been done in a country that we typically don’t think about—South Africa.
I discovered Holocaust commemoration... Continue reading
21 April 2015
"Faces of the Fallen" is a volunteer project, established in 2012, to research the lives of fallen soldiers in Israel and complete the details engraved on their tombstones. Sponsored in cooperation with the memorial unit of Israel's Ministry of Defense, the project works collaboratively with Yad... Continue reading
30 March 2015
Today at Yad Vashem two cousins who have found each other thanks to Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names met for the first time. It was a very emotional and unexpected meeting. The grandmothers of Tatiana Zuckerman of Moscow (66) and Shalhevet Sara Ziv of Kfar Sava (67) were... Continue reading
23 February 2015
Artworks created during the Holocaust, often intimate and fragile, at times extremely personal, can be viewed as important documents, written by means of artistic expression rather than with words. They constitute a most valuable tool for understanding the inconceivable reality of the Holocaust. A... Continue reading
10 February 2015
Roman Frister was born in 1928 in the town of Bielsko, Silesia, the only child of a bourgeois, well-off family. Roman was given a multi-cultural education, with access to books in German, Polish and English. His parents had intended to send him to a prestigious boarding school in London straight... Continue reading
29 January 2015
It has been brought to our attention that there are several instances on our website where camps are referred to as "Polish death camps." Yad Vashem is dedicated to providing accurate and updated historical information. in 2006 Yad Vashem previously supported the request of the Polish Government... Continue reading
31 December 2014
Yad Vashem Publications' new release, Letters Never Sent: Amsterdam, Westerbork, Bergen-Belsen by Mirjam Bolle is a personal historical account of persecution, distress and anguish.
In early 1943, Mirjam Levie, a young Jewish woman from Amsterdam, began writing letters to her... Continue reading
In early 1943, Mirjam Levie, a young Jewish woman from Amsterdam, began writing letters to her... Continue reading
22 December 2014
The Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research hosted an international conference from December 15, 2014 to Thursday, December 18, 2014. The conference entitled, "All of Israel are Responsible for One Another”? included researchers, historians and leading experts from all over the... Continue reading
16 December 2014
Following tradition, each year the Mansbach family comes to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum to bring home their menorah to use during the festival of Hanukkah. The menorah was donated to Yad Vashem by the Mansbach family and is on permanent display in the Holocaust History Museum.... Continue reading
11 December 2014
Yad Vashem Publications' new release, The Journey of Ilse Kaufmann: Vienna-Prague-Buenos Aires, is a personal testimony of Ilse Kaufmann's survival in the Holocaust.
Each story of wartime survival is different, but knowing whom to trust is a dilemma shared by many who were struggling to... Continue reading
08 December 2014
Yad Vashem mourns the passing of Holocaust survivor, journalist, author and diplomat Naphtali Lau-Lavie yesterday at the age of 88. Naphtali was the older brother of Yad Vashem Council Chairman and former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau.
The two brothers, who were born in Piotrków... Continue reading
Deborah Berman
11 September 2014
I am a proud descendant of the Jewish artist Carol Deutsch, my great uncle, who was murdered during the Holocaust. This week I had the honor of accompanying my aunt, Josette Deutsch-Nelson, Carol's niece and her son Philip Nelson on an emotional visit to Yad Vashem’s Museum of Holocaust Art, where... Continue reading
09 September 2014
Is there a need to invest in preserving original items in an age when it is possible to display a scanned image of them on the Internet?
In what manner does the digital age affect the traditional divisions between different types of collections?
To what extent can conservation experts... Continue reading
In what manner does the digital age affect the traditional divisions between different types of collections?
To what extent can conservation experts... Continue reading
01 September 2014
This week, children in Israel, the US and elsewhere are returning to school after the long summer break. As school gets underway, a new online exhibition spotlights teachers who have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations – those remarkable individuals who took extraordinary risks to... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
24 August 2014
As more news of the atrocities being perpetrated by the Islamic State becomes publicly known, Dr. Robert Rozett sheds insight onto the dangers inherent in ISIS's ideology.
It would be eminently reasonable to suppose that the kind of evil embodied by the Nazis and their radical ideology of... Continue reading
07 August 2014
"This was a truly exceptional seminar. It brought order to what I already know while enriching it intelligently."
Participant in Seminar for Belgian Educators, July 2014
This summer, despite the difficult situation here in Israel, hundreds of educators from across the globe attended conferences... Continue reading
21 July 2014
During the past few weeks, anti-Israel rhetoric, focused on Israel’s actions in the current battle with Hamas, has become, in many cases, synonymous with virulent antisemitism.
This antisemitism, in the form of accusing Israel of perpetrating a “Holocaust” or “genocide” in Gaza, or of acting like... Continue reading
15 July 2014
A rare encounter between descendants of family friends during the Holocaust era occurred at Yad Vashem this week. Recently, Marcel Calef, a resident of Miami, Florida originally from Colombia, was notified by his cousin, Daniel Camhi, of a Yad Vashem facebook post detailing illustrated postcards... Continue reading
14 July 2014
When visiting a Jewish cemetery it is usually on specific occasions or dates, for example the annual yahrtzeit (anniversary of the date of death) of a relative or friend. One is not likely to pay much attention to the words imprinted on the various tombstones surrounding him. But if one... Continue reading
10 July 2014
Despite the deteriorating security situation in Israel, hundreds of educators from across the world attended the 9th International Conference on Holocaust Education at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies from July 7-10, 2014.
Shawntelle Nesbitte, a teacher and curriculum... Continue reading
07 July 2014
Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research has recently published a number of new books in English which reveal new insights from unique perspectives into various aspects of the Shoah.
Gates of Tears: The Holocaust in the Lublin District
... Continue reading
... Continue reading
02 July 2014
In June 2014 Hessy Taft (nee Levinson) visited Yad Vashem with her husband to present a unique gift to the Archives. While recounting a rare story that occurred to her as a baby, Hessy handed an original issue of the Nazi family magazine "Sonne ins Haus" (Sunshine in the House) with her baby... Continue reading
30 June 2014
Several participants of Yad Vashem's International 60th Anniversary Mission which took place June 11-19, 2014 in Poland and Israel are still sharing some thoughts regarding their experience. Among them are Rosalyn Gaon, granddaughter to Holocaust survivor David Feuerstein, President of the Chile... Continue reading
22 June 2014
A special International Mission marking Yad Vashem's 60th anniversary this month included an exceptional eight days in Poland and Israel. At the closing event, Yad Vashem Benefactor Mark Moskowitz shared his reflections:
Good evening.
I am the son of survivors. My brothers and sister and I... Continue reading
05 June 2014
A new Holocaust and Liberators Memorial was unveiled at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, by Governor John Kasich of Ohio on Monday, June 2, 2014 in a commemorative ceremony. The new memorial featuring words by Avner Shalev, Yad Vashem Chairman, was designed by world-renowned architect Daniel... Continue reading
Chava (Eva) Shik
28 May 2014
Among the six Holocaust survivors who greeted Pope Francis during his visit to Yad Vashem on Monday 26, 2014 was Chava (Eva) Shik, an Israeli Holocaust survivor from Novi Sad, Serbia, who shared some her thoughts from the historic visit.
As I write this article I still can't even believe it myself... Continue reading
27 May 2014
In an important and significant visit, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople visited Yad Vashem on Tuesday, May 27 and toured the Holocaust History Museum, participated in a memorial ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance, visited the Children's Memorial, and signed the Yad Vashem... Continue reading
12 May 2014
In January 2014, Yad Vashem signed an agreement with the San Marino State Archives guaranteeing the transfer of scanned copies of the ancient republic's wartime documents. Today, May 12, 2014 San Marino Ambassador at Large H.E. Mr. Yosef Gershon presented Dr. Haim Gertner, Director of the Archives... Continue reading
Avner Shalev
30 April 2014
I am often asked how Yad Vashem intends to preserve the memory of the Holocaust after those who survived its horrors are no longer with us.
This question is informed by the apt perception that when Holocaust survivors share their stories with others, they serve as living testament to the Shoah's... Continue reading
23 April 2014
The eldest child in a family of medical professionals, many of them doctors and nurses, Dr. Yaakov Trosman (101) of Denver, Colorado was born on March 20, 1913 in Luginky, Ukraine. Tragically in the fall of 1941 his parents, Dina and Natan, his grandfather, Chaim Gersh, his uncle Shmulik Trosman,... Continue reading
27 March 2014
On March 24, 2014 the International Institute for Holocaust Research of Yad Vashem hosted an international conference entitled "Judeo-Bolshevism": The Crystallization of an Antisemitic Political Concept. The conference was made possible through the generous support of the... Continue reading
14 March 2014
Purim evening at the Ilia camp in Transylvania in 1943 was a very difficult one. Conditions were unbearable and spirits were very low. Zvi Hershel Weiss, a prisoner at the camp, decided to write a text for the holiday to uplift the mood of his fellow Jews imprisoned alongside him. Recently, Zvi’s... Continue reading
10 March 2014
In 2001, Dr. Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld, a professor at Tilburg University in the southern Netherlands decided to renovate his house, and being a historian by profession, began to look into the history of its previous owners. To his amazement the house had previously belonged to the Polak family, a... Continue reading
Eliana Rapp Badihi
05 March 2014
As Head of Spanish and Portuguese Speakers Desk at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust my main job consists of organizing and coordinating seminars for Spanish and Portuguese speaking educators from Latin America, Spain and Portugal, who are interested in studying about the Holocaust... Continue reading
Dr. David Silberklang
09 February 2014
"From Warsaw, desperate letters arrived from those still alive. They advised us not to follow their lead; to save ourselves so that at least a small remnant of the movement would survive. Zivia and Antek said that it was a pity for all the blood that had been shed. A telegram arrived from Tabenkin... Continue reading
30 January 2014
Last week, a seminar for museum directors, educators and researchers from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine recently came to an end at the International School for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem following a two week seminar which began on January 13, 2014.
While at Yad Vashem, the group of 24 museum... Continue reading
26 January 2014
"I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger," in David's last letter, Vilna 1941
How do we remember our loved ones – our family, our friends? For many Holocaust survivors and their families there are no pictures, no letters, and certainly no marker in the... Continue reading
29 December 2013
Conscripted Slaves
Hungarian Jewish Forced Laborers on the Eastern Front during the Second World War
Robert Rozett From the spring of 1942 until the summer of 1944, some 45,000 Jewish men were forced to accompany Hungarian troops to the battle zone of the Former... Continue reading
Hungarian Jewish Forced Laborers on the Eastern Front during the Second World War
Robert Rozett From the spring of 1942 until the summer of 1944, some 45,000 Jewish men were forced to accompany Hungarian troops to the battle zone of the Former... Continue reading
25 December 2013
"If they want to come here, let them do so." Almost 70 years since his grandparents Petrus (Pieter) and Adriane Kleibroek spoke these words, agreeing to their daughter Nelie’s request to provide shelter for the Jewish Drukker family, Peter Hetem and his wife Rineke came to Yad Vashem to see the... Continue reading
23 December 2013
“Yad Vashem's story as an institution is rare: an initially small, ground roots initiative in a new nation that developed remarkably into a world-renowned institution which meaningfully influences multitudes of people, in the Israeli, Jewish and international spheres. This influence provides a... Continue reading
01 December 2013
The special Commemorative Coin issued by the Bank of Israel to mark the 60th Anniversary of the establishment of Yad Vashem, was presented on Hanukka (Sunday), December 1, Kislev 28, to Yad Vashem Chairman, Avner Shalev, at a ceremony held at Yad Vashem in the presence of the Governor of the Bank... Continue reading
Jackie Frankel
17 November 2013
During the three days of the General Assembly of The Jewish Federations of North America 2013 in Jerusalem last week, I was privileged to dialogue and debate alongside the veteran and up-and-coming leaders of the Jewish world. Jews from North America and Israel, from all backgrounds, came together... Continue reading
13 November 2013
Michael Bloomberg Honored by the America Society for Yad Vashem.
This week the Annual Tribute Dinner of the American Society for Yad Vashem, was held on Sunday, November 10th. With inspiring addresses from honoree Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council Rabbi Israel... Continue reading
03 November 2013
During the German occupation of Holland, Jan Giliam, a police detective from Haarlem, who frequented the Jewish-owned store of Jacques De Vries, urged Jacques and his family to go into hiding, offering his own home as a temporary way station. Within a few days, Jan managed to arrange permanent... Continue reading
22 October 2013
On Monday, October 21, 2013 Rivka and Ben-Zion Dorfman donated to Yad Vashem a collection of tens of thousands of photographs of synagogues throughout central Europe. Over the course of thirty years, the couple traveled from town to town, documenting old synagogues through the camera lens. The... Continue reading
03 September 2013
Just three months before he died, Naftali Stern visited Yad Vashem on Holocaust Remembrance Day, 1978. Naftali, an elderly man in his late 70’s, took out an envelope containing frayed pages; written on them were the prayers for the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah Musaf), the longest in Jewish... Continue reading
22 August 2013
Recently, Haviva Peled-Carmeli, Senior Curator & Director of the Artifacts Department at Yad Vashem was cited by the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport for her professional achievements in the field. She was nominated for the 2013 Curator's Award by Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem and... Continue reading
15 August 2013
"Yad Vashem is not a museum; it is a space for memory," said Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem Directorate, at a special seminar held this summer dedicated to the topic of architecture and Holocaust remembrance. The seminar was the initiative of Prof. David Guggenheim, faculty member of the... Continue reading
15 August 2013
Growing up in the United States, the Privens did not know much about their family history or the tragic fate of relatives from their father’s ancestral village of Pavoloch during the Holocaust. Driven to uncover their family roots, siblings Lew and Cheryl Priven embarked on a genealogical search... Continue reading
04 August 2013
Just published, the articles in Yad Vashem Studies 41:1 address people’s decisions and actions during the Shoah. Two authors published in this volume, Yuri Radchenko (Ukrainian auxiliary police in Kharkiv) and Stefan Klemp (German police in Northern Italy... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
01 August 2013
Professional seminars at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies are quite intense - packed with lectures, workshops, various interdisciplinary sessions and tours of the Yad Vashem campus. At the conclusion of these programs, participants often comment on their exhaustion and... Continue reading
28 July 2013
“The cars stopped and I saw bald people with striped suits… I told my mother I think they brought us to an insane asylum,” related Violette Mayo in testimony depicting her arrival from the Greek islands to Auschwitz.
On Thursday, July 25, 2013 an annual memorial or yahrzeit ceremony... Continue reading
22 July 2013
Recently, Holocaust survivor and artist Ernest (Ernie) Meyer donated 17 artworks to Yad Vashem. He created the pieces during his youth in Nazi Germany and abroad during the Holocaust. Among the works is a portrait of his teacher, the renowned Jewish-German artist Ludwig Meidner, and depictions of... Continue reading
11 July 2013
On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 during an emotional visit to Yad Vashem, Holocaust survivor Moshe Hofstadter (Ramat Gan, Israel) received four books that belonged to his father Avraham who was murdered in the Holocaust. The books were sent to Yad Vashem by Dr. Christoph Schlegel, an Austrian grandson... Continue reading
03 July 2013
“It is essential that we successfully educate the next generations of students so that they continue to know the history and internalize the lessons of the Holocaust.”
Orli Gamzo Letova
Orli Gamzo Letova, a teacher from the Yarkon School in the center of the country was one of 1,200 teachers from... Continue reading
12 June 2013
Ruda Chaya Huberband was only eight-years-old when she was murdered by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. She was a child, an innocent who had not yet experienced and lived life. Having died before reaching the age of 12, Ruda Chaya did not get to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah, which signifies the... Continue reading
27 May 2013
Expanding on last week’s entry regarding the day-long symposium on May 6, 2013, which discussed performing arts in Holland during the Holocaust and was sponsored by the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem along with the International Institute for Jewish and Israeli Culture... Continue reading
22 May 2013
Yad Vashem has recently been the recipient of TripAdvisor's 2013 Excellence Award. TripAdvisor, which is the foremost travel website driven by reviews and comments of tourists and travelers, gives the award to the top-performing 10% of all businesses worldwide on TripAdvisor. It is given to... Continue reading
08 May 2013
On Monday, May 6, 2013 the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem along with the International Institute for Jewish and Israeli Culture held a day-long symposium discussing performing arts in Holland during the Holocaust. The informative lectures and panels focused primarily... Continue reading
23 April 2013
This past Friday, April 19th marked the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the largest act of Jewish armed resistance during the Holocaust. This heroic act of defiance against the Nazis and their collaborators began as the complete liquidation of the ghetto was initiated on Passover... Continue reading
Richard Mann
14 April 2013
Just as the evening ceremony at Yad Vashem commemorating Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom Hazikaron Lashoah Ve'lagvurah in Hebrew) was done in an incredibly emotional and meaningful manner, the following day continued in this trend yet in a drastically different way in which I... Continue reading
Richard Mann
10 April 2013
Having just started working at Yad Vashem last week, I waited eagerly to learn and experience up close for the first time just how exactly Yad Vashem commemorates Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom Hazikaron Lashoah Ve'lagvurah in Hebrew), a national day of remembrance in Israel on... Continue reading
27 March 2013
Last week, Rabbi Herschel Schacter, who was among the liberators of Buchenwald passed away. You can read the New York Times obituary here.
In this photo, Rabbi Schacter is seen leading Shavuot prayer services for survivors in the Buchenwald camp, Germany, May 18, 1945. It is a photo that is on... Continue reading
05 March 2013
A moving event was held yesterday to recognize the late Jeanne Albouy as a Righteous Among the Nations. Her grandson, Serge Marignan, came especially from France with his wife and daughter for the event. Claire Kohlman, who was a little girl during the Holocaust when Jeanne Albouy hid her in a... Continue reading
26 February 2013
The other day, a special Megila was brought to Yad Vashem – a scroll with 1,349 names of Jews from the town of Pinczow (Kielce region) in Poland who were murdered in the Shoah. The names, written in a beautiful script in Hebrew in alphabetical order, will be meshed into Yad Vashem’s Central... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
31 January 2013
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.
80 years later, Robert Rozett reflects on the legacy of that day. You can read more about it in his piece published in Haaretz:
The Holocaust began with elections
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yad Vashem's Dr.... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
17 January 2013
Seventy years ago, on January 18, 1943, in the Warsaw Ghetto, a group of Jews attacked German forces who were rounding up Jews for deportation to the extermination camps. Although nearly all the Jewish attackers were killed in the ensuing fight, the experience gave hope to the Jews in the ghetto... Continue reading
27 December 2012
A group of twenty senior educators from across India recently participated in a special seminar at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies. The group included secondary school teachers, high school principals and university lecturers who teach a variety of disciplines. For many, it... Continue reading
Prof. Dina Porat
20 December 2012
This week Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research is hosting an international conference marking 70 years since the end of 1942, believed by many historians to mark a turning point in the course of WWII – and the Shoah. Over four days, concluding today, some 50 guest lecturers... Continue reading
19 December 2012
"I didn’t think of myself as a Holocaust survivor, my mother was the Holocaust survivor", says Lerner, "That changed one day in a conversation with my son Baruch (Bori) when I referred to myself as 2nd generation and he said 'sorry dad but you won't take that honor from me', that’s when I realized... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
29 November 2012
On this overcast, misty morning in the heart of Berlin, I could feel the eyes of Anna Maria “Settela” Steinbach staring at me from the sky. Settela was born in Limburg, the Netherlands, in 1934. Settela was deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz-Birkenau on May 19, 1944 together with other members... Continue reading
15 November 2012
"I pray every night. I believe in God. But nobody knows about it. With a heavy heart I showed my first and second entry in my diary, but I’ll never show the third one. But I have to return to what I want to write about. So, I believe in God. My teacher influenced me. Not only me, but the entire... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
31 October 2012
The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were authored by the Czarist secret police during the last years of the 19th century, primarily to support the Russian regime’s virulently anti-Semitic policies. They are purported to be the minutes of a secret meeting between Jewish leaders who discussed their... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
24 October 2012
In essence, Anne Frank wrote a “blog” 70 years ago. I have often wondered whether Anne would have won the Pulitzer Prize had she not died in Bergen Belsen?
Anne Frank was one of the 1.5 million Jewish children who died during the Shoah simply because she was Jewish. In hiding in Amsterdam, Anne... Continue reading
Yifat Bachrach-Ron
14 October 2012
The Yad Vashem campus extends over 45 acres of forest and groves upon the hills of Jerusalem. Some 15 acres are irrigated flower gardens and trees – most of them planted in honor of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Through the initiative of Gadi Giladi, Director of the Maintenance Department at Yad... Continue reading
14 September 2012
Today, Italian Minister of Education and Research Francesco Profumo visited Yad Vashem. During the visit, the Minister met with Italian educators who are currently participating in a teacher-training seminar at Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies, as well as with Yad Vashem... Continue reading
06 September 2012
This past week, President of Israel Shimon Peres honored 50 years of activity of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations. In a moving reception at the President's Residence, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev gave the President a special memento - a copy of the testimony... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
27 August 2012
In 1935, Hannah Gofrit was born in Biala Ravska, Poland, a town where Jews and Poles had lived and worked together for generations. She had a wonderful childhood until WWII broke out in September 1939. I Wanted to Fly Like a Butterfly provides a touching account of Hannah’s experiences as... Continue reading
22 August 2012
The Sobibor death camp, located in the eastern part of the Lublin province of Poland, was active from April 1942 until October 1943. After an inmate uprising in October 1943, the Germans decided to dismantle the camp, and it was left standing without any visible markers identifying its former use.... Continue reading
21 August 2012
Last week 24 educators from the United Kingdom participated in a special seminar at the International School for Holocaust Studies. During an intense 10 days they experienced in-depth tours of the Museums of Yad Vashem, dialogued with top Holocaust historians and educators, and met with Holocaust... Continue reading
16 August 2012
Jakob and Jeanette de Jonge lived with their three children – Ruth, Heinrich and Joachim-Max, in the town of Weener, Germany, near the Dutch border. Already at the beginning of the Nazi rise to power, Jakob was arrested under false pretenses, the result of a complaint lodged against him by a local... Continue reading
15 August 2012
Made famous by Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell in Edward Zwick's movie Defiance, the Bielski brothers saved some 1200 Jews in the forests of Belarus during the Holocaust.
This true and remarkable story is featured in the International School for Holocaust Studies' e-... Continue reading
02 August 2012
This week, Yad Vashem, in partnership with the Ministry of Education, held a special event to mark 70 years since the deportation of Polish Jews to the Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka extermination camps. Some 1.7 million Jews were murdered in these death camps; all told some 2 million Jews in the so... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
25 June 2012
June 22 is day we all need to remember. On this day in summer 1941 Nazi Germany attacked its ally, the Soviet Union. It was the start of a new and extraordinarily bloody and destructive phase of the Second World War. It was the move that ultimately contributed more than anything else to Hitler’s... Continue reading
31 May 2012
Eliezer Ayalon, a Holocaust survivor who passed away earlier this week, was a lovely gentleman, always full of life and energy. A resident of Jerusalem, Eliezer shared his story with countless groups of all ages and backgrounds here at Yad Vashem and around the world. Every week, and sometimes... Continue reading
29 May 2012
Today, Righteous Among the Nations Jan Karski will posthumously receive America's highest civilian honor - the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Jan Kozielewski (he later took on his non de guerre Karski) was born in Lodz. In 1935, after completing his studies at Lwow University, he embarked on a... Continue reading
Deborah Berman
13 May 2012
In September of 1938 Shmuel Rosenberg of Hajdunanas, Hungary presented his daughter Margitte with a Machzor – a special prayer book for the Jewish High Holidays. Rosenberg, a Melamed - a teacher of Jewish studies, lovingly inscribed the Machzor in poetic Hebrew, as follows: “I purchased this for my... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
01 May 2012
A bit after 8 pm on April 18, 2012, the eve of Holocaust Marytrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, I had just tucked my sons into bed. Since the rest of my family was attending the opening commemoration ceremony of Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem, I decided to open the Yad Vashem website in... Continue reading
29 March 2012
Amalia Miodownik was recognized recently at Yad Vashem for her inspirational volunteer work in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she served for two years as the community coordinator for Yad Vashem's Shoah Victims' Names Recovery Project in cooperation with a local organization - Generaciones de la... Continue reading
Jonathan Yoni Berrous
22 March 2012
Like everyone else, I was shocked and horrified when I heard about the shooting at the Otzar Hatorah school in Toulouse. But when the victims were announced, the shock became even more personal, as I realized that I knew Rabbi Sandler. In December 2010 a group of French teachers came to Yad Vashem... Continue reading
Gili Diamant
21 March 2012
Yesterday, twelve-year-old Dani Milner visited Yad Vashem with her class from the Levine Academy in Dallas, Texas, where they saw the tree Dani's grandmother planted in 1989 in honor of her rescuers. Irena Steinfeldt, Director of the Department of the Righteous Among the Nations showed Rigler and... Continue reading
Avner Shalev
15 March 2012
Earlier this week, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev spoke in the Austrian Parliament, at a special event dedicated to the importance of Holocaust remembrance and education, and to the Austrian Friends of Yad Vashem. Barbara Prammer, President of the National Council of Austria and Honorary... Continue reading
12 March 2012
Since launching the "Gathering the Fragments" Campaign last year, fascinating stories have come to light as more than 40,000 items, documents, diaries, photographs and artworks have been collected for preservation and safekeeping from 2,600 people. In one case, at a collection day in the northern... Continue reading
08 February 2012
January was a busy month here with the opening of our new International Seminars Wing, 2 exhibitions on display at UN headquarters in New York "A Monument of Good Deeds: Dreams and Hopes of Children During the Holocaust," intended for a younger audience, and a new international poster design... Continue reading
30 January 2012
Today, the new International Seminars Wing of Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies opened in the presence of Israel's Minister of Education, Gideon Sa'ar and Foreign Minister of Canada, John Baird. Mr. Baird remarked on the close relationship Canada shares with Israel, stating... Continue reading
Irena Steinfeldt
29 December 2011
An opinion piece that ran in the New York Times accuses Yad Vashem of having different standards for recognizing rescuers of Jews as Righteous Among the Nations, because a Tunisian man, Khaled Abdelwahab was not recognized as a Righteous. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
08 December 2011
On December 8, 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – (is) a date which will live in infamy.” Of course he was talking about the Japanese surprise attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, the attack that catapulted the United States into the Second World War... Continue reading
22 November 2011
“By participating in the seminar, I deeply recognize the importance of Holocaust education. I think the essential goal of Holocaust education is ‘to remember the past, to live the present, to trust the future.’ (Abba Kovner)” - one of 29 Chinese educators who spent two-weeks at the... Continue reading
20 November 2011
Aron Heller, AP
For five long years during World War II, Nahum Korenblum never left the side of his younger brother Yaakov as the two fled the Nazi invasion of Poland, escaped forced labor camps across Europe and ultimately joined the Soviet Red Army. There, they were separated and... Continue reading
15 November 2011
Last week visitors to Yad Vashem were surprised to see a tricycle being navigated around the Campus with a camera, almost like a periscope, perched on the back of the trike. Google's Streetview Trike had arrived for a several hour ride around the Mount of Remembrance. Negotiating the different... Continue reading
Rose Feldman
02 October 2011
When Yad Vashem made its Central Database of Holocaust Victims' Names available to the public on the Internet in 2004, it provided a treasure chest of information to all those researching their families who disappeared in the Holocaust. Many families had been spilt by immigration during the 19th... Continue reading
25 September 2011
“My grandmother is resting more peacefully today, knowing her mission is over.”
With these words Magdalena Wojciechowska of Lodz, Poland handed a simple necklace to Michael Tal, an artifacts curator in Yad Vashem’s Museum Division. The necklace had been in Magdalena’s grandmother’s... Continue reading
22 August 2011
Check out this article from Bloomberg on the San Francisco Chronicle about art that was created during the Holocaust by a little girl in hiding, and that has now gone on display at the Museum of Holocaust Art at Yad Vashem.
By GWEN ACKERMAN Bloomberg
Israeli artist Maya CohenLevy is... Continue reading
28 July 2011
Yesterday, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev and Director General Natan Eitan presented certificates of appreciation to the employees who fought the fire that threatened Yad Vashem last week. At a special ceremony they paid tribute to some 30 Yad Vashem workers who stood on the front lines, fighting... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
12 July 2011
In June 1981, Abba Kovner stated, “As long as it is not too late, we must recognize that the Holocaust is not the obsession of those who survived, and that the identification with the six million victims, and the elements of that period are not just the concerns of those who experienced it... Continue reading
10 July 2011
"Everyone must do the maximum that they can"
Yesterday, along with some 50 teachers attending a break-away session at Yad Vashem's Teachers ‘conference, I was privileged to "listen in" on an intimate conversation between David Zucker – who as a young boy escaped with his family... Continue reading
04 July 2011
Each year Israeli school teachers get a much needed summer recess from the pressures the school year. This week – only a few short days after the close of the school year - close to 1,200 Israeli pre-school, elementary and secondary school teachers are taking part in a two day conference at Yad... Continue reading
Prof. Yehuda Bauer
26 June 2011
Murderous mutation of anti-Semitism
On the 70th anniversary of Hitler's invasion of the USSR, Yad Vashem Academic Advisor Prof. Yehuda Bauer proposes a theory to explain the reason why the Fuehrer led his people into war.
The full article ran in Haaretz this weekend.
The... Continue reading
22 June 2011
“The Nazi invasion to the Soviet Union is a distinct and significant watershed. With the invasion, the war became a World War and the destiny of the Jews was determined: the mass-murder of the Jews began in earnest, with brutality reaching an unparalleled level.”
With these words Yad Vashem... Continue reading
Szilvia Peto-Dittel
12 June 2011
History teacher and youth educator Péter Heindl is more like a father figure than a teacher to his students in Magyarmecske, a remote and poverty-stricken Hungarian village near the Croatian border. After returning from a teacher training course at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust... Continue reading
01 June 2011
Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev will receive the prestigious Yakir Yerushalim (Patron of Jerusalem) award in recognition of his activities. The award will be presented this evening (Wednesday June 1) on Jerusalem Day in a ceremony in the Tower of David Museum. Since 1967, the award has... Continue reading
Adina Abecasis
05 April 2011
As a teacher of Jewish Studies for the past 20 years in both England and Gibraltar, one of the major obstacles I have encountered is how to best teach the Holocaust to a generation that, regrettably, has not been sufficiently informed or educated regarding this momentous part of our recent history... Continue reading
Talia Alon
27 March 2011
“The shortest journey”, wrote the Israeli poet Lea Goldberg, “Is upon the years. … The shortest journey is the journey to the past”. The past had a significant presence in the annual commemoration of the Jewish community of Macedonia recently at Yad Vashem’s Synagogue. It seems that the journey to... Continue reading
28 February 2011
On 23 February, Bronka Klibanski (née Winicka) - Holocaust survivor, fighter, researcher and author - passed away, leaving behind a heritage of resistance, courage and admiration from all who knew her. Born in Grodno, Klibanski was a member of the Dror Youth Movement who joined the Bialystok ghetto... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
27 January 2011
As we were standing in the construction site of a 330-seat Edmond J. Safra Lecture Hall being built as part of the new wing of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, I began to reflect on Brundibar, a theatrical event performed by Jewish children in Terezin as well as... Continue reading
27 January 2011
Myriad events and endeavors have been taking place to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Here's a brief wrap up of some of our most prominent events:
Yad Vashem and Google partner to preserve and share Holocaust archives
Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yad Vashem and... Continue reading
05 January 2011
Clairette Vigder, a seven-year-old girl living in Nazi-occupied Paris, devoted hours to drawing what she was not permitted to go out and see in person – brightly colored birds and the sun. With arrests of Jews commonplace in Paris, Clairette was confined indoors by her parents, where she devoted... Continue reading
21 December 2010
Today, Yad Vashem announced that it has identified two-thirds of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust - 4 million names.
“In the past decade (2001-2010) we have succeeded in adding about 1.5 million victims' names to the Names Database, increasing by some 60% the information we had,” said Avner... Continue reading
20 December 2010
Yesterday the annual international conference of Yad Vashem's research institute opened. This conference, the 18th since they began, looks at various issues connected to hiding, sheltering and borrowed identities as means of rescue during the Holocaust.
In the opening session, Yad Vashem Chairman... Continue reading
30 November 2010
Each year, just prior to Hanukkah, Yehuda Mansbach arrives at the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem to take a nostalgic piece of history back home with him for the eight days of the Festival of Lights. Yehuda brings his grandfather’s Hanukkah menorah home to his son, who was named for his... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
17 November 2010
Tomasz Klos, principal of the lyceum of the University of Lodz, is a trail blazer. Although an expert in the field of law, he opted to channel his energies to found a new high school in an effort to invest in the shaping of young minds, the leaders of tomorrow.
On September 1, 2011, this new high... Continue reading
17 November 2010
A huge and important new archives and research project was launched yesterday by the EU in Brussels. The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) is to date the most important European research project about Holocaust documentation.
Avner Shalev, the Chairman of Yad Vashem noted that, “The... Continue reading
14 November 2010
Children Saved Thanks to Single Family Visit Yad Vashem
From Ynet.com, by Zvi Singer
Dozens of children saved during the Holocaust thanks to one family's efforts came to Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority to give testimony on Monday, Yedioth... Continue reading
20 October 2010
My name is Jodi Margolis and I will be celebrating my Bat Mitzvah in December this year. I heard about the Yad Vashem Bat/Bar Mitzvah twinning programme, which gives me the opportunity to link my Bat Mitzvah with a girl who died in the Holocaust, and bring her name to life. This girl’s name is... Continue reading
05 October 2010
Some twenty Chinese educators are currently participating in a 2-week seminar at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies that opened October 4, 2010. This first of its kind seminar brings together participants from China, Hong Kong and Macau, for in-depth study of the Holocaust and... Continue reading
28 September 2010
Fanya Gottesfeld was born into a traditional Jewish family in Skala, a small village or “Shtetl” in Eastern Galicia, which is located in the Ukraine, during Sukkot. When the Germans entered Skala in the summer of 1941, life immediately became much worse for the Jews there, including the Gottesfeld... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
23 August 2010
A number of European countries, under the direction of the continental wide parliament, now commemorate the crimes of the Nazis and the crimes of the Soviets together. The date designated for this is August 23, the day in 1939 when the Nazis and the Soviets signed a pact that essentially gave them... Continue reading
09 August 2010
Yad Vashem’s Synagogue was filled last week with Holocaust survivors from Greece and their families who gathered together for an annual remembrance day commemorating the Jews of Kos and Rhodes who were murdered in the Holocaust. They sang traditional songs in Ladino, remembering their lost... Continue reading
01 August 2010
After visiting Yad Vashem on Friday, NBA star Amare Stoudemire said:
"It was an incredible experience. I learned a lot, and encourage my friends and others to visit Yad Vashem as well."
29 July 2010
Over the years, Yad Vashem has been dedicated to both commemora ting those that were murdered in the Shoah, as well as educating future generations throughout Israel and the world about what took place. One of the programs that Yad Vashem has recently developed in this vein is the Bar/Bat Mitzvah... Continue reading
21 July 2010
“I am acquainted with Israelis and I’ve participated in meetings between Israelis and Palestinians, but I wanted to know more about the Holocaust… I sent out an e-mail to a few friends and posted on Facebook, and was surprised by the interest. I received more than 60 positive responses from people... Continue reading
18 July 2010
Between studying the Holocaust in both university and Hebrew day school, I consider myself to be no stranger in the world of Holocaust memory. Nevertheless, during Na’ama Shik’s lecture, earlier this week, on Jewish female experience in Aushwitz-Birkenau, I found myself dumbfounded. I realized I... Continue reading
29 June 2010
Here's a piece in today's International Herald Tribune by the former president of Poland reflecting on the role of Holocaust education today. Interesting read!
In an article on June 18, Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, wrote that the teaching of the... Continue reading
17 June 2010
Heinz Kounio, is one of only 1,950 Jews from Salonica who survived the Holocaust. Deported from Greece in 1943, he survived Auschwitz, and at the conclusion of the war returned to his hometown. Kounio, the former head of the Jewish community in Salonica, has spent years gathering and documenting... Continue reading
14 June 2010
The actress Bette Midler has just left Yad Vashem after an emotional visit to the Holocaust History Museum. Here she is visiting the Hall of Names.
14 June 2010
In a tale spanning across Poland, Belaraus, Israel and the US, Avner Yonai (38) a native Israeli businessman living in California, recently connected with a lost relative after discovering Pages of Testimony submitted by his grandfather in memory of family members who were murdered in the Shoah.... Continue reading
Richelle Budd Caplan
13 June 2010
Remembrance ceremonies and events paying respect to the victims of the Holocaust began to be organized even before the Second World War ended. Official Commemoration ceremonies of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, beginning at sunset on the twenty-seventh day of the... Continue reading
30 May 2010
White house Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and his family visited Yad Vashem last week during their trip to Israel marking his son Zach's bar mitzvah. Following a guided tour of the Holocaust History Museum, Zach was "twinned" with a child victim of the Holocaust. Bar/bat mitzvah twinning projects are... Continue reading
30 May 2010
From Haaretz Books, June 2010, by David B. Green
Last month marked the publication of the new two-volume “Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos During the Holocaust."” (Guy Miron, editor in chief, and Shlomit Shulhani, co-editor; published by Yad Vashem and distributed by NYU 67 pages, $... Continue reading
20 May 2010
"This encyclopedia presents scholars and layment for the first time with a comprehensive view of the ghetto phenomenon"
Prof. Omer Bartov
After six years of research, this groundbreaking publication was launched in New York on May 13, 2010. Dozens of professors and researchers of the... Continue reading
29 April 2010
This week 40 new volunteers from across Israel participated in a training day at Yad Vashem, joining the ranks of the global network of volunteers assisting Shoah survivors and members of their generation with the task of commemorating family and friends killed in the Holocaust. The volunteers... Continue reading
25 April 2010
A new Yad Vashem publication has just now been released. Edited by the late Prof. David Bankier and Prof. Dan Michman, this volume addresses the representation and historiography of the Holocaust in post-war trials. The historical significance of the Nuremberg Trials is widely acknowledged, and it... Continue reading
19 April 2010
Following the enactment of the Nuremberg Race Laws, Heinz Samson was expelled from school at the age of 15, thereby preventing him from completing his studies. In 1939, Heinz, now 19, left his family home in Norden, Germany. With only ten Riechsmarks in his pocket, he made his way to London, where... Continue reading
11 April 2010
Tomorrow a new exhibition will open at Yad Vashem. Curator of the exhibition Yehudit Shendar, writes about its significance in Haaretz:
A powerful visual voice
Sixty-five years after the Holocaust, the weight of memory continues to be borne by the survivors. Over the years, many have found... Continue reading
28 March 2010
Last week I was privileged to hear a very special choral concert in the Yad Vashem Synagogue. The Synagogue, a monument to all the Syngogues destroyed in the Holocaust, and filled with Judaica rescued from destroyed synagogues in Europe, was a fitting stage for The "Leipziger Synagogalchor" to... Continue reading
17 March 2010
Today, Jon Landau, producer of Avatar and Titanic, among other films, visited Yad Vashem with his wife. They visited the Holocaust History Museum, and the Visual Center at Yad Vashem. In the Visual Center, they were touched to discover two films produced by his late father Ely... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
09 March 2010
Elliott (Elly) Dlin passed a way from a massive heart attack last week. He was 57 years old.
Elly began his career in the field of Holocaust Education and Museums at Yad Vashem in 1978. Along with a changing cast that included Shalmi Barmore, Yehiam Weitz, Itzik Mais, David Silberklang, Yaacov... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
03 March 2010
Since David Bankier (z”l) passed away last week, I’ve been trying to remember when we first met. I have clear memories of him giving me rides out of Yad Vashem in the early 1980s when we both gave lectures in what was then called the Education Department. I can’t recall if this was as early as the... Continue reading
04 February 2010
Yad Vashem was saddened to learn that Ivan Vranetic, a Righteous Among the Nations from Croatia, has passed away at the age of 84. Vranetic was recognized by Yad Vashem in 1970 providing assistance and hiding places to Jews during the Holocaust. He moved to Israel, and for more than 20 years served... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
27 January 2010
On January 27th the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was adopted by the United Nations in November 2005. In many venues Holocaust Remembrance Day has become a day not only to commemorate the Holocaust, the systematic murder of some six million innocent Jews by the Nazis... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
29 November 2009
The Demjanjuk trial is opening tomorrow in Germany. Unquestionably trials centered on crimes committed during the Holocaust serve as significant forums for bringing the history of that era to the public’s attention. They provide an opportunity to highlight not only events but to explore society-... Continue reading
Mordechai Lensky
26 November 2009
A Physician Inside the Warsaw Ghetto, 1939-1943
In this fascinating first-hand account, Mordechai Lensky, a Jewish doctor in the Warsaw ghetto, struggles against all odds to provide medical care to a community condemned by the Germans to squalor, disease, and death. Lensky... Continue reading
Dr. Robert Rozett
15 November 2009
The celebration is over and the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has come and gone. Now is the time for more sober assessments. Especially regarding the place of the Holocaust in much of the former Communist bloc, some serious issues remain to be resolved.
In the search for a useable past... Continue reading
09 November 2009
On November 9, Yad Vashem held a special event marking 71 years since the Kristallnacht pogrom. Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, addressed the people in the Yad Vashem Synagogue. The Yad Vashem Synagogue contains Judaica from destroyed synagogues of Europe... Continue reading
15 October 2009
Yesterday, a very special multi-media presentation, “The World that Was,” was unveiled in Yad Vashem’s Valley of the Communities. The short film depicts the richness and vitality of 2,000 years of Jewish life and culture before the Holocaust. Fittingly it is screened in the Valley, a massive 2.5... Continue reading
04 October 2009
Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of spending some time with some remarkable women: Marta Spiegel, Veronica Ferres, Anni Richter-Aschoff and Lia Hoensbroech, and Margarita Broich. Mrs Spiegel, is an amazing 97-year-old Holocaust survivor, who wrote a book about her experiences hiding with a family... Continue reading
15 September 2009
On Sept., 15, 1944, Rabbi Naftali Stern, an Hungarian Jewish inmate of the Wolfsberg forced-labor camp, finished writing out the Rosh HaShanah service. He wrote it out from memory, writing with a pencil stub on scraps torn from bags of cement he had purchased with bread rations. Rabbi Stern had... Continue reading
Cynthia Wroclawski
17 August 2009
Working with Holocaust survivors to assist them with filling out Pages of Testimony in memory of their loved ones who were killed during the war inherently involves listening to the stories of terror, loss and pain as they are filtered through the memories of those who bear witness. In many cases,... Continue reading
13 August 2009
Eddie Weinstein’s personal account of survival during the Holocaust, just re-published by Yad Vashem, is an especially moving and harrowing account of the Holocaust. He was only 17-years-old when he was sent to work as a forced laborer. Eddie was deported to Treblinka, but managed to escape, return... Continue reading
10 August 2009
The other day, I attended the event marking 67 years since the deportation to the Treblinka death camp of Janusz Korczak, Stefania Wilczynska, and the children of their orphanage, from the Warsaw Ghetto. One of the last Holocaust survivors who was in the orphanage spoke movingly about his memories... Continue reading
28 July 2009
Yesterday, this group of Palestinian youth visited Yad Vashem. Here's an interesting article about their visit.
16 May 2008
On April 29, 2008, one hundred students and guests gathered at theCamera Obscura School of Art in Tel Aviv for a seminar on the visual representation of the Holocaust. The seminar was held in commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day 2008, and was jointly sponsored by Yad Vashem’s Visual... Continue reading
Liat Benhabib
21 January 2008
“Watching my movie gave them the courage to examine their connections to the Nazi horrors. No German can escape this; it’s an integral part of our society.”
(Film director Malte Ludin, Germany) Hans Ludin was no ordinary German soldier, but the story of his family is typical. Malte Ludin,... Continue reading
(Film director Malte Ludin, Germany) Hans Ludin was no ordinary German soldier, but the story of his family is typical. Malte Ludin,... Continue reading
Liat Benhabib
12 July 2006
When words are inadequate, the human body and the language of dance may be employed to tell stories and to transmit emotional content. American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist Maya Deren referred to dance on film as “choreography for the camera.” The Toronto-basedKaeja d’Dance... Continue reading