Contents
►
Editors' Remarks
►
Committed to
Memory
UN Declares
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
►
The New Museum:
Behind the Scenes
A Family Connection
► Art
Focus
New Exhibition:
Montparnasse Déporté
►
Education
►
Global
Teaching; Dynamic
Learning
►
Seminar for Survivors of
the Rwandan Genocide
►
Focusing on
Europe
►
The Names
Database:
A Year Online
►
A Gift of
Color
►
News
►
Inauguration of the new
Visual Center
►
Warsaw Ghetto Square
to
connect to new Museum
Complex
►
Yad Vashem
wins four
prizes for technical
excellence
►
Whoever Saves
One
Life…
►
Events
October-
December 2005
►
Children’s Art
from Czech
Republic
►
Hungary honors
Yad Vashem
►Recent
Visits to
Yad Vashem
►
Dr. Joseph
Kermish z”l
(1907-2005)
►
New
Publications
►
Friends
Worldwide
►
About the Magazine
►
Credits
►
Back Issues
►
Contact Us |
Yad Vashem mourns the passing of Dr. Joseph Kermish, the founder
and first Director of the Yad Vashem Archives.
Joseph Kermish was born in the town of Zlotniki in the Tarnopol District
in 1907. In 1937, he earned his doctorate on the topic of “Lublin and the
Surrounding District from 1788-1794.” With the outbreak of the war,
Kermish escaped to Rovno, where he worked as a history teacher, and later
as a high school principal. He was hidden by one of the teachers from the
school until 1944, when the Russians returned to the region. In 1950 he
made aliyah and settled in Hadar-Yosef. As a founding member of the
“Jewish Historical Commission” established in Poland immediately after the
war, Kermish became skilled in collecting documentation and deciphering
worn out handwriting. An expert in investigating Nazi war crimes and
documenting destroyed communities, he helped establish the ZIH (Jewish
Historical Institute) in Lodz and served as its Deputy Director from
1948-1950. With the establishment of Yad Vashem in 1953, Kermish founded
the Archives, the Library and the Bibliography Department, together with
Nachman Blumenthal.
At Yad Vashem, Kermish helped publish six volumes of The Underground Press
of the Warsaw Ghetto, and served as Director of the War Criminals
Division. In 1958, he began working on Adam Czerniakow’s diary. In 1978,
he retired as Director of the Archives and devoted himself to working on
the publication of sections of Emanuel Ringelblum’s “Oneg Shabbat”
Archives.
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