Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev hosts Minister Zeev Elkin at Yad Vashem

Today, 23 June 2020, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev hosted Minister Zeev Elkin for his first working meeting as the minister charged with coordinating ties of the Israeli government with Yad Vashem. Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev, the Director-General and various divisional directors at Yad Vashem provided Elkin with a first overview of Yad Vashem's activities in Israel and around the world.

Elkin was presented with a facsimile copy of a letter written by a child murdered during the Holocaust. The letter has since been restored, preserved and is now housed in Yad Vashem's Archives.

“I see a sign that we will meet each other face-to-face in our Land, our Homeland, Eretz Israel.“

Ten-year-old Eliezer Rudnik wrote these words in 1937 to his aunts who had immigrated to Eretz Israel. The letter was written in Hebrew and Yiddish. Aryeh and Sarah Rudnik and their son Eliezer were the only Jews living in the Ukrainian village of Kosmaczow. They were shot in 1942 in a killing pit after the German occupation.