15 March 2005
- The new Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem is four times the size of the original historical museum it is replacing. The new museum spans some 4,200 square meters.
- Throughout the new museum an emphasis has been placed on presenting the history of the Holocaust from a human perspective - featuring approximately 90 personal stories from the point of view of the Jews
- The new museum contains over 2,500 items including authentic artifacts and document, as well as:
- Over 100 video screens displaying testimony from individual survivors and film clips which were produced specifically for the new museum
- Over 280 art works are presented throughout the museum
Over 65 witness testimonies were filmed specifically for inclusion in the new museum.
- The new museum makes revolutionary use of multimedia presentation to present the historical narrative together with the personal stories. There are two presentations of video art – the ‘Jewish World’ before the Holocaust by Michal Rovner at the beginning of the museum, and the ‘Epilgoue’ by Uri Tzaig.
- Over 600 photographs of victims and fragments of Pages of Testimony feature in the new Hall of Names.
- The new Holocaust History Museum is only part of the new museum complex. The redevelopment also includes the new Museum of Holocaust Art, a new Exhibition Pavilion, a Synagogue, a Visual Center and a Learning Center.
- It took over 10 years to plan and build the new museum complex.
- The cost of building the new Holocaust History Museum was over $40 million.
- Over 40 high level international delegations will be participating in the new museum’s inauguration ceremony on March 15.
- The visionary and chief curator of the new museum is Avner Shalev.
- The building’s architect is world renowned Moshe Safdie.
- The designer of the new museum and exhibits is Dorit Harel.
