23 January 2018
The Vice President of the United States of America Michael R. Pence and Second Lady Mrs. Karen Pence will visit Yad Vashem today. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Mrs. Sara Netanyahu, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev and Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council Rabbi Israel Meir Lau will accompany the Vice President throughout the visit.
Senior Historian at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, and Editor-in-Chief of Yad Vashem Studies Dr. David Silberklang will guide the Vice President and Second Lady through the Holocaust History Museum. Yad Vashem Chief Curator and Chairman Avner Shalev will guide the Vice President through the Hall of Names. The Vice President will also sign the Yad Vashem Guestbook and participate in a memorial ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance.
About Yad Vashem:
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, was established by the Israeli Parliament in 1953. Located in Jerusalem, Israel Yad Vashem is dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, documentation, research and education. Through its International School for Holocaust Studies, International Institute for Holocaust Research, Archives, Museums and Library, Yad Vashem has become the global center for gathering and disseminating information about the Holocaust and seeks to meaningfully impart the legacy of the Shoah for generations to come.
The Holocaust History Museum
The Holocaust History Museum combines the best of Yad Vashem’s expertise, resources and state-of-the-art exhibits to take Holocaust remembrance well into the 21st century. Opened in 2005, the Holocaust History Museum occupies over 4,200 square meters, mainly underground. Both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, it presents the story of the Shoah from a unique Jewish perspective, emphasizing the experiences of the individual victims through original artifacts, survivor testimonies, personal possessions and artwork created during the Holocaust.
The Hall of Names
The Hall of Names, located at the end of the Holocaust History Museum, is dedicated to permanently preserving the names of all six million Holocaust victims, most of whom never received a Jewish burial. Yad Vashem has been fulfilling this mission since its establishment, archiving Pages of Testimony that memorialize the names and biographical details of every Jewish man, women and child murdered in the Holocaust. In an effort to retrieve all the names, they are collected from every possible source – family members, acquaintances, archival documents and community memorial endeavours. To date, Yad Vashem has collected over 4,700,000 names of Holocaust victims. These names have been made available to the public via Yad Vashem's website through the Central Database of Shoah Victims' names in six languages. Yad Vashem will continue to collect the names of all the victims, each one an entire world that existed and was destroyed.
Hall of Remembrance
The Hall of Remembrance was the first commemoration site established at Yad Vashem on the Mount of Remembrance, in 1961. Its walls are made of basalt boulders brought from the area surrounding the Sea of Galilee, and its angular roof gives it a tent-like shape. Engraved on the mosaic floor are the names of 22 Nazi murder sites, symbolic of the hundreds of extermination and concentration camps, transit camps and killing sites that existed throughout Europe. The Eternal Flame continuously illuminates the Hall, its smoke exiting the building through an opening at the highest point of the ceiling. Before it stands a crypt containing the ashes of Holocaust victims.
