by Vivian Uria

“There are no words… only those who were there know what it was to be there. And yet we are duty bound to try to tell, and not bury our memories in silence… We decided to tell the tale because we wanted the world to be a better world. And learn, and remember.”
Nobel Laureate Prof. Elie Wiesel, at the opening ceremony of the New Museum at Yad Vashem, March 2005

In the first three months since the new Holocaust History Museum and Holocaust Art Museum opened to the public at the end of March, over 350,000 people have visited Yad Vashem. An average of 5,000 visitors tour the Museum every day—an increase of 100% from before the opening. There has also been a dramatic rise in the number of individuals touring the Museum, currently amounting to half of all visitors.

The development plan implemented at Yad Vashem over the last decade sought to meet the ever-increasing expectations and standards of quality service and exhibit presentation. Yad Vashem is now facing various challenges: to provide a meaningful experience for all visitors while maintaining suitable services and facilities.

The Visitors Center—inaugurated in September 2003—offers an information and orientation center, a bookstore and more. Here, staff members endeavor to provide efficient service, shorten waiting times, and smoothly coordinate the flow of visitors to the Museum. The level of background noise (including screened survivor testimonies) within the new Museum has also brought to light the necessity for an audio system to provide suitably quiet visitor guidance. Efforts are therefore currently underway to provide such a service.

Established in advance of the Museum’s opening, the new Reservations Center coordinates group visits, allowing the largest possible number of people to tour the Museum in an appropriate atmosphere. (Individuals are not currently required to coordinate their visits prior to arrival). Currently external tour guides may lead public groups through the Museum, with prior permission from the Reservations Center. Educational groups—teachers, students and soldiers—are guided by staff members from the International School for Holocaust Studies.

The author is Director of the Visitors Center.

Bearing Witness
by Dr. Bella Gutterman

To Bear Witness – Holocaust Remembrance at Yad Vashem, edited by Bella Gutterman and Avner Shalev, 2005, 350 pp., NIS 119

“The new Museum Complex is designed to meet the changing needs of each generation and serve as a bridge between the world that was destroyed and the life that resumed.” The Editors, To Bear Witness—Holocaust Remembrance at Yad Vashem

One visit to the new Holocaust History Museum and the new Museum of Holocaust Art is insufficient to encompass the wealth of material displayed: documents, artifacts, photographs, maps, artworks and personal testimonies. The visitor senses this, and feels he or she did not have a chance to fully absorb the wealth and variety of the exhibitions. To Bear Witness—Holocaust Remembrance at Yad Vashem is intended to help visitors’ take the momentous experience home with them and digest the immense store of impressions and information provided by the Museum.

The album offers an in-depth acquaintance with the Museum Complex, and can be read at various levels of interest: The reader can leaf through the hundreds of photographs—some of which are being published for the first time in the album—and glean concise information from the accompanying explanations. For those who wish to learn more, the comprehensive text presents the events leading up to and during the Holocaust, the national Jewish revival and the founding of the State of Israel, along with a description of the establishment of Yad Vashem and its various components.

The layout of the album follows the structure of the Museum, chapter by chapter. A chronological description, alongside a thematic one, emphasizes the Jewish perspective—and particularly that of the individual—against a backdrop of the deeds of the murderers and the inaction of those who idly stood by. Special chapters are devoted to the acts of rescue carried out by the Righteous Among the Nations, along with rescue operations of Jews by other Jews and the heroic acts of the partisans, underground fighters and soldiers in the Allied armies.

The album has been published in Hebrew and English, and is currently being translated into French, German and Spanish. A Russian translation will follow.

The writer is the Director and Senior Editor of Yad Vashem Publications.

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