YAD VASHEM

A visit to Jerusalem is inconceivable without a visit to Yad Vashem, a singularly moving experience and one of the most symbolic places in the State of Israel. This museum-memorial was created in memory of the six million victims of the Holocaust and the Righteous who sought to save them. The complex includes a research and archive center, several museums and a dozen memorials spread over some 18 hectares. In Hebrew, Yad Vashem means "a memorial and a name": the expression is borrowed from the prophet Isaiah (56:5) "And I will give them, in my house and within my walls, a memorial (Yad) and a name (Shem) that will not be erased."

The Yad Vashem MemorialHolocaust Museum was inaugurated in 2005. Designed by architect Moshe Safdie, the prism-shaped building evokes the lower half of the Star of David, a reminder that half the world's Jewish population perished in the Holocaust. The 4,200 m² exhibition space features hundreds of documents, official papers, propaganda posters, photographs and films, tracing the history of anti-Semitism in Europe from the earliest days of discrimination to the Nazi camps. The Shoah is dealt with exhaustively, while the individual tragedies of men, women and children are highlighted with personal testimonies and objects, in an attempt to put a face on the horror. The museum integrates audiovisual and computerized documents, so that the words and names of the victims will not fade away once the last survivors have disappeared. The tour ends in the Hall of Names, then takes you to a terrace with a panoramic view of Jerusalem.

The Art Museum presents permanent collections of works produced in the extermination camps, as well as temporary exhibitions. Particularly noteworthy are the drawings of David Olère, a deportee whose talent saved him from extermination: the Nazis commissioned him to paint portraits or do floral calligraphy for their wives. He worked in the Sonderkommando at crematorium 3, Auschwitz.

In the gardens, among the sculptures evoking the martyrdom of the Jewish people, you'll see a candelabra lit every year on Nissan 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Enter the grotto dedicated to the memory of the million and a half children who died in the camps. It's a monument that you walk through in the dark, guided by a handrail. The children's names are constantly recited by a monotone voice. You can also stroll down the Alley of the Righteous Among the Nations: non-Jews who, at the risk of their own lives, saved Jews. A carob tree has been planted for each righteous person. Some are anonymous (notably French), whom Yad Vashem was able to track down thanks to the memories of the people they saved, while others are better known, like Oscar Schindler, the former Nazi industrialist to whom Hollywood dedicated a film.

Yad Vashem's archives comprise over 50 million documents, including photographs and films, which are open to the public. The library contains over 70,000 books, including the trial records of Nazi criminals. To research the whereabouts of a deportee, contact the International Tracing Service in Germany.

The "Valley of Communities", where rocks engraved with the names of the 5,000 Jewish communities in Europe destroyed by the Nazis have been placed, also deserves our full attention.