Yad Vashem

The desire to establish a memorial in the historical Jewish homeland for Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust originated during World War II, in response to emerging accounts of the mass murder of Jews in Nazi-occupied countries. Yad Vashem was first proposed in September 1942, at a board meeting of the Jewish National Fund, by Mordecai Shenhavi, a member of Kibbutz Mishmar Ha'emek. In August 1945, the plan was discussed in greater detail at a Zionist meeting in London. A provisional board of Zionist leaders was established that included David Remez as chairman, Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Baruch Zuckerman, and Shenhavi. In February 1946, Yad Vashem opened an office in Jerusalem and a branch office in Tel Aviv, and in June that year convened its first plenary session. In July 1947, the First Conference on Holocaust Research was held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. However, the outbreak of the 1947–1949 Palestine war brought operations to a standstill for two years.

On 19 August 1953, the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, unanimously passed the Yad Vashem Law, establishing the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, the aim of which was "the commemoration in the Homeland of all those members of the Jewish people who gave their lives, or rose up and fought the Nazi enemy and its collaborators," and to set up "a memorial to them, and to the communities, organizations and institutions that were destroyed because they belonged to the Jewish people."

On 29 July 1954, the cornerstone for the Yad Vashem building was laid on a hill in western Jerusalem, to be known as the Mount of Remembrance (Hebrew: Har HaZikaron); the organization had already begun projects to collect the names of individuals killed in the Holocaust; acquire Holocaust documentation and personal testimonies of survivors for the Archives and Library; and develop research and publications. The memorial and museum opened to the public in 1957.

The location of Yad Vashem on the western side of Mount Herzl. Some Israeli authors claimed that this area lacks weighty historical associations, distinct from the Chamber of the Holocaust, founded in 1948 on Mount Zion. However, it was actually built on Khirbet al-Hamama, which consititutes the agricultural lands of the Palestinian village Ayn Karim prior to the Nakba. This place was chosen because it was far from the Jerusalem city center, and the founders of the memorial site did not want to erect a grim, sorrowful memorial, amidst population concentration. The conceptual connection of "From Holocaust to Rebirth" was made only with hindsight: Only in 2003 the Connecting Path between Yad Vashem and the National Cemetery in Mount Herzl was created and paved. The "Valley of the Communities" monument at Yad Vashem commemorates over 5,000 Jewish communities destroyed or damaged during the Holocaust, the names of which are engraved on its towering walls. The position of Yad Vashem is that the Holocaust is incomparable to any other calamity previously inflicted on the Jewish people, and therefore the Holocaust cannot be regarded as a continuation of the death and destruction that plagued Jewish communities over the centuries, but rather as a unique phase in history, an unprecedented endeavor to totally annihilate the Jewish people.

In 1982, Yad Vashem sponsored the International Conference on Holocaust and Genocide, which included six presentations on the Armenian genocide. It later withdrew from the conference after threats by the Turkish government that Jewish lives would be put in danger if the conference went ahead.

On 15 March 2005, a new Museum complex four times larger than the old one opened at Yad Vashem. It included the Holocaust History Museum with a new Hall of Names, a Museum of Holocaust Art, an Exhibitions Pavilion, a Learning Center and a Visual Center. The new Yad Vashem museum was designed by Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, replacing the previous 30-year-old exhibition. It was the culmination of a $100 million decade-long expansion project.

Controversies

Ładoś Group

In April 2019, the Yad Vashem granted the title of Righteous Among the Nations to Konstanty Rokicki and offered "appreciation" to Aleksander Ładoś and Stefan Ryniewicz, arguing that Rokicki headed the Ładoś Group. The document erroneously called Ładoś and Ryniewicz "consuls". The decision sparked outrage and frustration among the family members of the two other late Polish diplomats, and among survivors. Thirty one of them signed an open letter to Yad Vashem. Rokicki's cousin refused to accept the medal until two other Polish diplomats, Rokicki's superior, are recognized as Righteous Among The Nations, too. Polish Ambassador to Switzerland Jakub Kumoch who contributed to the discovery of Rokicki also refuted the Yad Vashem's interpretation stating that Rokicki worked under Ładoś and Ryniewicz. Eldad Beck of Israel Hayom suggested that this decision was politically inspired and related to the worsening of Israel-Poland relations due to the controversy over the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance.

Political interference and leadership

In 2018, Yad Vashem chief historian Dina Porat participated in developing a compromise agreement between the Israeli and Polish governments about Poland's record during the Holocaust, and moderating a Polish law criminalizing any assertion of any Polish complicity in the Holocaust or other Nazi crimes. By agreement between the Israeli and Polish governments, the law was reworded to acknowledge some Polish misconduct, in exchange for a joint declaration by Polish government and Israeli Knesset that many Poles committed "heroic" efforts "to save Jewish people." However, the museum, itself, argued the declaration "contains highly problematic wording that contradicts existing and accepted historical knowledge in this field," and harshly disparaged the deal, saying the agreement would stifle free research about the subject.

In February 2020, Yad Vashem apologized for "inaccuracies" and "partial" facts that had been presented in Jerusalem at the previous month's World Holocaust Forum (attended by Russian president Vladimir Putin and other world leaders). The criticism alleged the program excessively emphasized Russia's role in ending World War II, and suppressed information unpalatable to Russia's government.

In 2020, plans to appoint Effi Eitam to head the institutions have been criticized due to alleged racist remarks made by the appointee.

In summer 2023, a number of scholars, politicians and media figures have criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Yoav Kisch for an attempt to remove Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan from his position, noting that this reduces the independence and, hence, credibility of the institution.

Relationship to the Nakba

Yad Vashem was built on the territory of Ein Karim, a depopulated Palestinian village that had been inhabited by 3,500 Palestinian Christians who fled after the Deir Yassin massacre. According to Saree Makdisi, the hilltop campus of Yad Vashem, in ensemble with the Memorial Park and National Military Cemetery on Mount Herzl, burial site of Theodor Herzl, form "the most sacred monuments to Zionism." The complex overlooks the remains of the depopulated Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, site of the Deir Yassin massacre, which is not mentioned in the complex and which has been partially covered by the Jerusalem Forest and partially renovated and converted into the buildings of the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center.