Highlights of Yad Vashem’s Activities in 2023

Holocaust Education

Learners at the International School for Holocaust Studies

126,700 students and youth participated in seminars and other learning programs, 72,500 from Israel and 54,200 from overseas. The activities took place via virtual platforms and traditional in-person settings.
29,900 teachers and opinion-shapers participated in educational activities – online and in-person – run by the International School, 11,500 from Israel and 18,400 from abroad.
98,300 soldiers and officers of the IDF and other Israeli security forces participated in seminars and training days, including 21,900 at the new Yad Vashem Education Center for Holocaust Remembrance on the Ariel Sharon IDF Training Base in the Negev.
82,000 individuals participated in Yad Vashem courses and lectures.
681 Bnei Mitzvah participated in special tours of the Holocaust History Museum. 249 Twinning Kits were sent to Bnei Mitzvah in Israel and abroad.

Research and Publications

Yad Vashem Publication "Memory and Justice: Israel’s Supreme Court Judges Write about the Holocaust"

The International Institute for Holocaust Research held 2 international conferences, 6 international research workshops, 5 symposiums and book launch events, 3 annual lectures and 9 seminars for Holocaust scholars.
11 senior researchers from Israel and abroad participated the International Institute's program for research fellows. One special grant was awarded to research about Ethiopian Jews and their relation to European Jews during World War II.
12 awards were granted to Master's and Doctoral students studying in Israel. 3 scholarships were awarded to Doctoral Students abroad, 3 scholarships were awarded by the Institute's Moshe Mirilashvili Center for Research on the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. The excellence award in memory of Prof. Israel Gutman, led by the Ghetto Fighters' House in cooperation with Yad Vashem and several universities and research institutes in Israel, was granted.
The International Institute for Holocaust Research granted the annual Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research in Memory of Benny and Tilly Joffe z”l to:
Dr. Laurien Vastenhout for her book: Between Community and Collaboration: "Jewish Councils" in Western Europe under Nazi Occupation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022)
Prof. Edward B. Westermann for his book: Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2022)
A new dedicated program to encourage the development of future research, awarded scholarships to 2 outstanding Yad Vashem employees' doctoral students.
A new Research Project was launched to promote studies on the Holocaust in Austria, and encourage Israeli scholars who will specialize in Holocaust-era Austria.
28 new publications were released by Yad Vashem: 13 research studies (among them 4 volumes of Yad Vashem Studies) and 7 memoirs, as well as 8 diaries and other archival publications.

Righteous Among the Nations

Some 220 individuals were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. At the end of 2023, over 28,000 individuals had been awarded the title.

Visits, Events and Public Outreach

New York Mayor Eric L. Adams visiting the exhibition "Flashes of Memory"

675,000 people visited Yad Vashem.
3,270 individuals attended 5 online screenings accompanied by a short lecture as part of the seventh season of Yad Vashem's Film Club.
47 events and memorial services were conducted, including the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies. Most of these were held in conjunction with Holocaust survivor and next-generation organizations.
35,170 public inquiries were answered, including requests for general information, reference assistance and updates to the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names.

Internet Activity

Yad Vashem's Online Project Commemorates Individual Holocaust Victims

7.35 million visits from 240 countries and territories were recorded on the Yad Vashem website.
85.9 million video views have been recorded on Yad Vashem's YouTube channels in English, Hebrew, Arabic, German, Russian, Spanish, French and Farsi since their launch.
6,700 individuals joined Yad Vashem's X (Twitter) accounts. As of December 2023, 119,000 individuals were following Yad Vashem in English, French, German, Russian and Spanish.
10,500 individuals joined Yad Vashem's Instagram account. At the end of 2023, the total number of followers stood at 118,000.
11,900 new followers joined Yad Vashem's Facebook page. At the end of 2023, the total number of followers was 256,400.

Yad Vashem Collections

The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names currently contains 4.9 million names, including 2.8 million from scanned Pages of Testimony.

3.6 million pages of Holocaust-era documentation were gathered by Yad Vashem. To date, Yad Vashem’s Archives, contain some 227.6 million pages of documentation.
74,500 additional names of Holocaust victims were gathered from Pages of Testimony and other sources.
Over 4,900,000 names of Holocaust victims, over 75% of the Jewish men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust, are now documented in Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, accessible online. Over half the total number of names in the online Names Database - 2.8 million names - were collected from Pages of Testimony.
257,000 pages of documentation and 7,500 photographs were scanned as part of the Archives' Digitization Project.
Over 100,000 new archival files were cataloged and 3,000 archival files were made available online to the general public.
2,200 items were preserved in the Conservation Laboratory, including 1,500 pages of documentation, 360 photographs and 360 artifacts. 900 additional items underwent initial conservation.
6,560 images were added to the Photo Archives. Yad Vashem currently houses 541,500 photographs, including over 209,800 attached to Pages of Testimony and preserved in the Hall of Names.
19,250 items – documents, diaries, photographs, artifacts and artworks – were collected from 800 people as part of the "Gathering the Fragments" project to rescue personal items from the Holocaust era. 386,750 items have been received from 16,630 individuals, since the campaign was launched in April 2011.
4,000 titles and 100 films were added to Yad Vashem's Library which now holds some 190,000 titles in 69 languages, including 170,000 book titles, 4,000 journals, 14,000 scholarly articles, maps and sheet music. The collection also includes 10,300 Holocaust-related films.
900 Holocaust survivor testimonies were filmed and recorded in the homes of Holocaust survivors. The Archives currently house 135,000 video, audio and written testimonies.
130 artifacts and 330 art works were added to Yad Vashem’s collections. The Artifacts Collection now holds 31,000 items and the Art Collection comprises 14,000.
20 workshops were held to introduce archival experts, researchers and the general public to the wealth of material available in the archival collections, 4 of them in conjunction with EHRI (the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure).

Exhibitions

The Book of Names actualizes the inconceivable number of Holocaust victims, and displays their names together with their personal details where known.

The "Book of Names" installation was displayed at UN Headquarters and then moved to Yad Vashem, where it is on permanent display.
4 exhibitions were presented around the world: the "16 Objects" exhibition in the Bundestag in Berlin and in Essen, Germany; the "Flashes of Memory " exhibition at the Museum of Photography in Berlin; and the "Responsibility for Memory: The Role of Art in Holocaust Remembrance" exhibition at the United Nations. In addition, the "Courage of Spirit: Resistance in Art from the Holocaust Era" exhibition opened at the Museum of Holocaust Art at Yad Vashem.
513 kits of 12 different exhibitions in the ready2print format were ordered and displayed in countries around the world.
Artifacts and artworks from Yad Vashem's collections were loaned to 4 exhibitions in the US and Europe.