05 April 2007
In advance of Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 16, 2007) Yad Vashem has launched a special mini-website, “Bearing Witness”. The mini-site includes information on this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day theme, Bearing Witness, as well as information for names reading ceremonies, “Unto Every Person There is a Name”, links to relevant material, video testimonies and more. A special mini-site for educators, has been uploaded by the International School for Holocaust Studies including lesson plans and ideas for ceremonies.
A related, new online exhibition “Witness to the Holocaust - the Oneg Shabbat Archives” explores the most significant collection of sources in the world documenting the Holocaust -- sources that were created, gathered, and written by the victims themselves, in real time, at the moment when they were experiencing the horrors. The exhibit includes original archival footage, video testimonies, photos, diaries, documents, and more.
The Yad Vashem website is visited by millions of people every year. In 2006, some 4.5 million visitors explored the site (which includes the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names). In the first three months of 2007, more than 1.5 million visitors have been logged, averaging about 17,300 visits a day.
The Yad Vashem website includes information in Hebrew, English, Russian, Farsi. An Arabic section is in development. Educational material is available in Croatian, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, French, German, Hungarian, Spanish, Romanian, Flemish and Czech.
