Yad Vashem's New Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism Educational Center Inaugurated at the IDF Training Campus in the Negev

Last Thursday, the Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism Educational Center in Cooperation with Yad Vashem was dedicated at the IDF training campus in the Negev. The Center comprises an interactive display on the topic "The Human Image in the Shadow of Death," as well as a year-round active commemoration space. The establishment of the Center allows teams from Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies to develop and carry out educational programs as an inherent part of IDF training activities, with respect to the preparation and as part of the service of the individual soldiers. The Center, the fruit of cooperative endeavors and long-standing dialogue between educators at Yad Vashem and the Chief Educational Officer and Head of the Training Campus Colonel Avi Motolla, aims to deal with the subject of the Shoah in a comprehensive and enduring manner, with an emphasis on professional guiding by Yad Vashem staff and the development of the values of the officers. Dealing with the story of the Holocaust as a pivotal event in the history of the Jewish people, alongside examining values such as Jewish identity, mutual responsibility, heroism and attachment to the Land of Israel, forms the basis for cooperative educational endeavors. This combination will allow the next generations of soldiers and commanders to commit to passing on the torch of remembrance.

"The Educational Center was established in cooperation with Yad Vashem in order to specialize the educational work of the IDF on the topic of the Shoah, and to provide it with deeper levels of study," said Yad Vashem Chairman Brigadier General (ret.) Avner Shalev. "The Center will be a platform for the discussion of authority and ethics arising from Holocaust commemoration – which will in turn bring to the fore the many meanings that can be taken from Holocaust remembrance vis-à-vis the identity of IDF soldiers as Israelis, Jews, and human beings."