Collecting Holocaust Related Items at Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem has been collecting documents, photographs and artifacts related to the Shoah ever since the end of WWII, and even before the founding of the State of Israel. The size of the collections - the world's largest - and their importance is such that an entire new building was constructed to house them. The new Archives building was completed in March 2000.  At the same time, a new state-of-the-art computerized data bank and information retrieval system became operational, and open to the public.

The process of registration of new materials is regulated by the Israeli law of Archives. Each item must be registered in a "book of acquisitions" (which is fully computerized as well). It receives a unique "acquisition number". This number is then sent to the donor, and can be used in the near or far future should the donors or their descendants wish to see the item. The identity of the donor, his address and other personal comments are also recorded in the book of acquisitions, but are classified information, not open to the general public unless otherwise noted by the donor. Further information about the items (stories about individuals in pictures, circumstances of the creation of the documents, etc.) are also registered. The items themselves are fully accessible to researchers, unless the donor wishes to restrict the access.

Fragile items or disintegrating documents are treated in our conservation laboratory, by our professional preservationists. Photographs will be scanned into our computerized data banks.

Detailed descriptions of each item, including dates and places of origin, historical circumstances, keywords, and a summary of content are all recorded in the data banks.

Back-up copies of documents are stored in a separate archive, outside of Jerusalem.

The person to contact regarding possible donation of items is:

Dr. Yaacov Lozowick, Director
Yad Vashem Archives
P.O.Box 3477
Jerusalem 91034
Israel

Tel: ++ 972-2-6443721
Fax: ++972-2-6443719