Yad Vashem, the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, was enacted by law in 1953. Since its establishment, Yad Vashem has been entrusted with the documentation of this chapter in Jewish history, commemoration of the name and life story of each of the six million who perished in the Holocaust, and furthering the lessons of the Holocaust and the legacy of its survivors.
The Photo Archive serves as one of the main resources for commemoration at Yad Vashem. It contains hundreds of thousands of photographs, which tell the story of the Holocaust through visual documentation. By nature of the medium, each photo is a freeze-frame of a particular moment in time, an event or a person. Each of these stories, captured within a given present, also has a past and a future.
The human story lies at the center of the pedagogical philosophy of the International School for Holocaust Studies. When approaching the subject of the Holocaust victims in the classroom, we must present students with a person – a person with a face and a name; a person whose unique human imprint the Nazis attempted to erase.

About the Website:
In this accompanying site to the Photo Archive, we wish to deepen understanding of the human story behind these photographs. We highlight the background to their stories, augmenting them with testimonies and memoirs, to try and understand the micro- and macrocosm in which they were taken. What is this moment captured on film? What is its historical background? Who are the people in the photograph? What are the educational questions to be asked?
At this stage, we’ve chosen to focus on the liberation from the camps, on the DP camps in Europe, and the immigration to pre-state Israel. This choice stems from Yad Vashem’s Central Theme for 2008: “Holocaust Survivors in Israel: 60 Years Since the Establishment of the State”. The website will feature more photographs and topics in the future.

How to Work with the Website:
General recommendations:

1. The site is suitable for grades 8-10.
2. Four distinct tracks are featured: Family, Children, DP camps and General. Within these tracks we focus on: the first days of liberation – various reactions and rehabilitation; loneliness and the search for a new meaning to life; The search for a home; a new home in Eretz Israel.
   The teacher can focus on any of the first three tracks, or choose “general”, which includes all of them.
3. The testimonies and discussion questions offer the teacher a suggestion for presenting each photograph in the classroom.
4. The testimonies and discussion questions offer the teacher a suggestion for presenting each photograph in the classroom.
5. The teacher should allow the students some time to observe the photograph before continuing to the testimony and discussion stage.

Options for Lesson Layout:

• The teacher may conduct a lesson based on one of the tracks, as suitable for the classroom (children, family or DP camps). The lesson can be observed by the students online, or printed separately as units – photograph, testimony/memoirs and discussion question. (The website featured an option for high-resolution printing of the photograph, as well as the accompanying material.)
• The teacher may conduct a lesson based on one complete track of the four. As above, the lesson can be viewed online or printed.
• The teacher may assemble a tailor-made track from the photographs included in the general track. The lesson can be viewed online or printed.
• Students can be divided into groups. Each group will focus on one of the three tracks – children, family, or DP camps – or on one subject from the general track, and discuss the material and questions available for each photograph. The groups will then convene in the classroom and present their ideas.

Concluding the Lesson:
After completing one of the options above, the photographs may be printed out with the appropriate material and assembled into an exhibition, to be displayed in the classroom or school.  

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Written and produced by The International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem

Pedagogical Advisors: Shulamit Imber, Naama Shik
Writing: Bili Shilo
Copy Editing: Yael Ringwald
English Translation: Jonathan Clapsaddle
Site Design: Bili Shilo
Programming and Design: Eviatar Biton, Stephanie Amara, Mayana Sebbah, Jeremy Zauder, Liz Elsby
Technical Support: Asaf Tal
Permissions and Copyright: Mira Museri