Jan - April 2009
April 21, 2009
www.yadvashem.org Uploads New Material Marking Holocaust Remembrance Day 2009
Marking Holocaust Remembrance Day (27 Nissan, this year, on April 21, 2009) new material has been uploaded to www.yadvashem.org. A special new mini-site, including online exhibits, photos, video clips and educational material explore this year’s theme, Children in the Holocaust.
Approximately one and a half million of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust were children. Some children were able to escape by hiding while other children survived by concealing their identities. Liberation did not end the suffering as most had no home to return to, no family to take them in. Special children’s homes were set up immediately after the war, to meet the tremendous physical and emotional needs of the children who survived the Holocaust. One of these home was in Otwock, Poland. A new online exhibition “A Time to Heal” (Ecclesiastes 3:3), The Story of the Children’s Home in Otwock, Poland, focuses on the children’s experiences from their arrival at the home in Otwock, through the difficult and often painful process of healing and rehabilitation.
The educational material uploaded includes age-appropriate lesson plans for grades K-12, ceremony suggestions, documents, interviews and films as well as other related teaching materials.
With more than 8.1 million visits during 2008, a more than twofold increase since 2005, www.yadvashem.org reached out to visitors from 220 countries and territories - including the United States, Israel, Germany, Great Britain, France, Canada, Egypt, Thailand, Barbados - around the world. Last year, Yad Vashem’s “Virtual School” of the International School for Holocaust Studies offered educational materials in 19 different languages to more than 1.2 million visitors who came for online courses, lesson plans, video conferences, community forums, interactive maps, ceremonies, educational units and more.
In addition, Yad Vashem’s four YouTube channels, in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish have been visited by more than 1.3 million people.
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, was established in 1953. Located in Jerusalem, it is dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, documentation, research and education. www.yadvashem.org
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February 13, 2009
Yad Vashem Statement Regarding the Pope's Comments Condemning Holocaust Denial
(February 12, 2009, Jerusalem) “Yad Vashem places importance on the Pope’s unequivocal statement condemning Holocaust denial and any attempts to minimize the scope of the Shoah,” remarked Yad Vashem Chairman, Avner Shalev. He added, “The Church’s clear public denouncement of all types of antisemitism, during his meeting earlier today with American Jewish leaders, is to be welcomed.” “ I am certain that the Pope will strengthen this important and unambiguous message regarding the importance of Holocaust remembrance in his remarks during his upcoming visit to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem this May.”
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes Remembrance Authority, was established by the Knesset in 1953. Located in Jerusalem, it is dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, documentation, research and education. www.yadvashem.org http://www.yadvashem.org/
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January 25, 2009
Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day:
www.yadvashem.org now in Spanish
Site to be launched by Spanish Foreign Minister on January 27
(January 25, 2009 - Jerusalem) Marking the fourth annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27) adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2005, Yad Vashem will launch a comprehensive new website in Spanish on January 27. The new site, which will be available at www.yadvashem.org, includes a multi-media exhibit of the “Auschwitz Album” with Spanish narration, extensive resources on the Holocaust, including hundreds of photos, documents, last letters, and artifacts, as well as material on Righteous Among the Nations, educational resources, maps, historical information, survivor testimonies, scholarly articles, art, lexicon entries, online exhibits and more.
The new website will be officially launched in Spain, on January 27, 2009 with the participation of Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos at the Palace de Viana in Madrid. The event will take place in the presence of Ana Salomon, Spain’s Ambassador to the 25-country Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF), and Perla Hazan, Director of the Iberoamerican, Spain and Portugal Desk of the International Relations Department at Yad Vashem. The event is in cooperation with Casa Sefarad Israel.
Yad Vashem is also launching a YouTube Channel in Spanish, [<http://www.youtube.com/user/yadvashemspanish>] joining the English, Hebrew and Arabic channels launched in 2008. Some 900,000 people have visited the three sites thus far.
The theme for Holocaust Remembrance Day in Spain this year is the Righteous Among the Nations. Irena Steinfeldt, Director of the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem will be in Spain for the events, and speak, on January 26th, at the “Lights of Humanity in the Face of the Holocaust: ‘Righteous,’ Rescued and Rescuers” International Seminar at the Instituto Cervantes of Madrid.
This week, there are some 30 educators from 9 South American countries studying at an intensive seminar on Holocaust education at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem. The School has developed a number of curriculums and pedagogical tools in Spanish, and continues to run seminars for educators, both Jewish and non-Jewish from the Spanish-speaking world.
“With so many Spanish speakers around the world, we are sure this new website will draw many visitors, eager to learn more about this chapter in history - a chapter that still resonates with us today,” said Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem. “As we launch this material in Spanish, it is our hope that the availability of accurate, comprehensive information about the Holocaust will further understanding of the events, providing the tools and information necessary to combat ignorance and denial.”
Yad Vashem is the 2007 recipient of the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord.
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Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day:
“BESA: A Code of Honor - Muslim Albanians Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust” Opens 27 January in Ramle
Hebrew/Arabic Exhibition will open in presence of Israeli-Arab High School Students from Ramle
(January 22, 2009 - Jerusalem) BESA: A Code of Honor - Muslim Albanians Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust, Photographer: Norman Gershman, will open at the Ramle Museum on January 27, 2009, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Yad Vashem Exhibition, now in Arabic and Hebrew, will open at 10:30, in the presence of Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev, Ramle Mayor Yoel Lavi, Deputy Director of the Museums Division at Yad Vashem Yehudit Shendar, and Arab-Israeli high school students from Ramle. For three months following the opening, groups of Arab and Jewish students from the city will visit the exhibition in special educational programs run by Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies, in cooperation with Ramle Municipality.
“It is our hope that this important exhibition will further understanding of the Holocaust, offering a glimpse into the difficult choices that people faced,” said Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev. “We are committed to providing accurate and comprehensive information about the Holocaust to as wide an audience as possible. Over the past year, we have also launched a website and YouTube channel in Arabic, providing those who wish to know, with the tools and information they need to combat ignorance and denial.”
About the Exhibition:
For four years, American photographer Norman Gershman photographed Muslim Righteous Among the Nations and their families in Albania. The Yad Vashem Exhibition BESA: A Code of Honor - Muslim Albanians Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust, features 17 of these portraits, accompanied by explanatory texts.
More than 22,000 individuals have thus far been recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, 63 of them from Albania. Prior to World War II, some 200 Jews lived in Albania. After Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, hundreds of Jews crossed the border from Yugoslavia, Germany, Greece, Austria and Serbia into Albania. When the Germans occupied Albania in 1943, the local population refused to comply with the Nazis’ orders to turn over lists of Jews residing in Albania. The remarkable assistance afforded to the Jews was grounded in Besa, a code of honor. Besa means literally “to keep the promise.” One who acts according to Besa is someone who keeps his word, someone to whom one can trust one’s life and the lives of one’s family. Impressively, there were more Jews in Albania at the end of the war than beforehand.
“Why did my father save a stranger at the risk of his life and the entire village? My father was a devout Muslim. He believed that to save one life is to enter paradise.” -- Enver Alia Sheqer, son of Righteous Among the Nations Ali Sheqer Pashkaj, featured in the BESA exhibition.
An English and Hebrew version of the exhibition was displayed at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem (2008) as well as at UN headquarters in New York (January 2008).
The Righteous Among the Nations program: http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/index.html
BESA online: <http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/what_new/gershman/temp_index_whats_new_Gershman.html>
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, was established by the Knesset in 1953. Located in Jerusalem, it is dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, documentation, research and education. http://www.yadvashem.org/
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