What's New

Holocaust Remembrance Day 2014

Israel's President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, dignitaries and thousands of Holocaust survivors and their families gathered on the evening of April 27th, in Yad Vashem's Warsaw Ghetto Square for the official ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Following the event, the International School hosted a study evening for students in Jerusalem and a special event "So that the Next Generations Will Know – Between Memory and Identity in Israeli Discourse" in Tel Aviv.  

Commemorative ceremonies took place on the Mount of Remembrance throughout the following day, including the wreath-laying ceremony in Warsaw Ghetto Square and the recitation of Holocaust victims' names in the Hall of Remembrance.  The International School for Holocaust Studies held educational activities for youth in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ashdod. The young people participated in a variety of educational activities including workshops and guided tours of Yad Vashem,  as well as attending short plays and specially choreographed dance programs relating to the day's theme: Jews "On the Edge"  1944: Between Annihilation and Liberation." Later in the afternoon, hundreds of members of Zionist youth groups, joined by Israel's Minister of Education Shay Piron, gathered together for a special ceremony in the Valley of the Communities. On Monday evening, The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, in partnership with Yad Vashem, performed the impassioned oratorio “Kaddish – I Am Here,” composed by Lawrence Siegel and commissioned by the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College, NH. 

The 9th International Conference on Holocaust Education:

Save the Date:
July 7-10, 2014, entitled "Through our Own Lens: Reflecting on the Holocaust from Generation to Generation."  For details contact:  international.conference@yadvashem.org.il

Spotlight on the Web

Holocaust Remembrance Day Online

This year, the Holocaust Remembrance Day subsite contains a moving exhibition exploring the fate of Jewish families during the pivotal year of 1944. "Stay Together!" highlights the struggles of individual family units from across Europe as the war reached its end.  Families continued valiantly to protect one another from deportation and death, while hoping somehow to survive until liberation. Also online are photos and videos of the torchlighters, the official events and ceremonies that took place throughout Holocaust Remembrance Day, educational materials, and more. A special online slideshow "Snapshots of Memory" presents some of the day's special moments.

Holocaust Education Video Toolbox

The Holocaust Education Video Toolbox is the first video portal designed specifically for Holocaust educators, teachers broaching the subject for the first time as well as interested learners. Six films, totaling 70 minutes of video, are divided into succinct chapters. Topics range from "What is the Holocaust?" to more advanced subjects such as "Poetry in Holocaust Education." The videos offer the basics of Holocaust history and Yad Vashem's pedagogical approach, and continue with hands-on methods for using existing online and print materials, testimony films and more in the classroom. Each video is accompanied by additional materials on Yad Vashem's website. 

Names Recovery

Names Database Inspires Global Commemoration

When Ari DeLevie submitted Pages of Testimony in 2002 for his aunt and uncle, Bernhardt and Frieda DeLevie, he did so in order to ensure that their names would be recorded for posterity.  Unbeknownst to him, a decade later those very Pages captured the curiosity of a German high school student, and launched her on a passionate mission to commemorate the Jewish victims of the small town of Meissen where both she and DeLevie's family had lived.  Read about her commemorative initiative here. 

New Publications

Gates of Tears

The Holocaust in the Lublin District

David Silberklang
$58 $43.50 (airmail included)
Gates of Tears is the first book in English to examine the Holocaust in the Lublin District, an area central to Nazi anti-Jewish policy. As the headquarters for “Operation Reinhard,” Lublin is also key to understanding the Jewish responses. The analysis traces two connecting threads – forced population movements and forced labor. The bitter early memory of these constants in German policy later became a determining factor in the Jews’ actions.  The book also gives voice to the extensive communication among Jews, even amidst the deportations and murder.  The story of the Lublin District highlights the futility of the Jews’ responses to the Holocaust and their inability to significantly affect their collective fate.

News Highlights

Giving Meaning to Holocaust Remembrance, in The Jewish Journal of LA / JTA
Preserving memories for posterity, in Israel HaYom
Jews on the Edge, in The Jerusalem Post
Israel unveils new Holocaust studies program starting in kindergarten, in Haaretz
Six survivors to light torches at Yad Vashem ceremony on Sunday, in the Jerusalem Post
From Three Countries a Family Reconnects, in JTA
70 Years Ago Today, the Holocaust Came to Hungary, in Tablet Magazine
Survivors speak to honor those lost in Holocaust, in The Boston Globe

Magazine

Yad Vashem Magazine Now Online

The Spring edition of Yad Vashem Jerusalem is now available online.  Highlights of the magazine include the biographies of this year's six torchlighters, a review of the new publication Conscripted Slaves about Hungrarian Jewish Forced Laborers, an article about a commemorative endeavor by a German high school student inspired by the Names Database, information on recent educational initiatives and more.

With Your Support

"When I come to Yad Vashem… I know that my story and the story of my family in the Holocaust will be carried on by generations and generations… The Holocaust will not die together with me."

Holocaust Survivor Elisheva Lehman

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