The AJE Jerusalem 3000 Educator's Resource

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is a national institution and memorial dedicated to perpetuate the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust. It is situated near Mount Herzl.

The name is taken from Isaiah:

"Even to them will I give in your House and within my walls a monument and a memorial (yad vashem). . . . I will give them an everlasting memorial that shall not be cut off".

It was built in 1957 on Har Hazikaron where Israel's heroes are buried. Every day a candle is lit to commemorate the death of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

The task of Yad Vashem is:

"to gather in material regarding all those Jewish people who laid down their lives, who fought and rebelled against the Nazi enemy and their collaborators, and to perpetuate their memory and that of the communities, organisations, and institutions which were destroyed because they were Jewish . ." The Hall of Remembrance is built of large unhewn boulders. Its floor is inscribed with the names of the 22 largest concentration and death camps. Here the Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, assembly is held every year on 27th Nissan.

There is a separate memorial to the one and a half million Jewish children who perished in the Holocaust. Using light and mirrors, one flickering candle is reflected many thousands of times and a recorded voice reads the names of children who perished in the Holocaust.

A central archive has been set up for research purposes, and contains over fifty million documents, microfilms, films, records and museum objects, all relating to the Holocaust. The library houses many thousands of books and periodicals. It publishes a yearbook both in Hebrew and in English. An art museum contains the works of ghetto and concentration camp artists.

A record is kept here of the martyrs who are registered on "Memorial Pages" and posthumously awarded Memorial Citizenship of the State of Israel. Outside there is a towering column dedicated to the memory of all those who resisted Nazism. The word 'zechor' (remember) is inscribed at the top.

The Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles perpetuates the memory of the non-Jews who risked their lives in order to save Jews. Each tree bordering the avenue carries the name and country of recipients of this award.