CASE STUDY: YAD VASHEM

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL
PROJECT DETAILS
■ LOCATION - Jerusalem, Israel
■ CATEGORY - Museum
■ ARCHITECT – Ar. Moshe Safdie
■ PROJECT YEAR – 1953
■ AREA - Approx. 44.5 acre
■ ABOUT –
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to
preserving the memory of the dead; honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors
and Gentiles who selflessly aided Jews in need; and researching the phenomenon of the
Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, with the aim of avoiding such events in the
future.
1) Visitors’ Center 2) Book & Resources Center 3) Cafeteria 4) Avenue of Righteous Among the Nations 5) The Holocaust History Museum 6) Hall of Names 7) Square of Hope
8) The Holocaust Art Museum 9) Synagogue 10) The Exhibitions Pavilion 11) The Visual Art Center 12) The Learning Center 13) Hall of Remembrance 14) Pillar of Heroism
15) Children’s Memorial 16) Janusz Korczak Square 17) Archives and Library Building 18) Family Plaza 19) International School of Holocaust Studies 20) Administration & Research
Building 21) Monument to Jewish Soldiers and Partisans who fought against Nazi Germany 22) Partisans’ Panorama 23) Valley of the Communities 24) Cattle Car 25) Warsaw
Ghetto Memorial – Wall of Remembrance 26) Swedish Ambulance 27) Monument to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon 28) Nieuwlande Memorial 29) Garden of Righteous Among the
Nations 30) The Memorial Cave
1) Visitors’ Center
Architect - Moshe Safdie
Donor - David and Fela Shapell
The entrance level of the glass and concrete enclosed aVisitors’ Center serves as a
place of orientation, information, reception and gathering. It opens in all directions
to views of the campus and the surrounding landscape. On the floor below, open to
the view of the valley, are visitor services, a cafeteria, restrooms and checkrooms.
Below this are the parking levels.

2) Book & Resources Center

The Book and Resource Center is located in Yad Vashem’s new Entrance Complex.
The center provides a wide range of current reference books, multi-media, memoirs
and Holocaust literature for visitor purchase. The 300 square meter building acts as
a resource center and fills book orders and visitor requests related to the Holocaust
and WWII in various languages. The center also offers all of Yad Vashem’s
publications as well as educational materials produced by its International School
for Holocaust Studies.

3) Cafeteria
Yad Vashem has a kosher meat cafeteria which offers hot meals as well as a coffee
shop. The cafeteria is located in the lower level of the Visitors Center. For visitors
exiting the new museum, a branch of the cafeteria is located in the Square of Hope.
4) Avenue of Righteous Among the Nations
Trees have been planted around the Yad Vashem site in honor of those non-Jews
who acted according to the most noble principles of humanity by risking their lives
to save Jews during the Holocaust. Plaques adjacent to each tree record the names
and countries of origin of those being honored.

5) The Holocaust History Museum

The new Holocaust History Museum's nine underground galleries tell the story of
the Shoah from the point of view of the Jews. The chronological and thematic
narrative is punctuated by a look into the worlds of Jews who lived - and died -
under the Nazis and their collaborators. The exhibits incorporate a wide variety of
original artifacts, testimonies, photographs, documentation, art, multimedia, and
video art.

6) Hall of Names
The names and personal details of millions of victims have been recorded on Pages
of Testimony, symbolic tombstones filled out by survivors in memory of their loved
ones, and preserved in the Hall of Names. In an ongoing effort to collect more
names before it is too late, Yad Vashem asks the public to assist in this sacred
mission.
7) Square of Hope

8) The Holocaust Art Museum

The new Holocaust Art Museum exhibits the world's largest collection of art created
in ghettos, camps, hideouts, and other places where artistic endeavor was nearly
impossible. These works reflect the very spirit of the victims and survivors. The
Holocaust Art Museum also contains the world's first computerized archive and
information center regarding Shoah art and artists.

9) Synagogue
The new Synagogue is a fitting place for visitors to say Kaddish for departed loved
ones, for private prayer, communal worship, and memorial services for lost
communities. Ritual artifacts rescued from destroyed synagogues in Europe adorn
the building.
10) The Exhibitions Pavilion
The Exhibitions Pavilion displays a wide variety of historical, thematic, and art
exhibits. This opens unique windows to the outer and inner worlds of Shoah victims
and contributes unique perspectives to the ongoing attempt to understand the
meaning of the Shoah.

11) The Visual Art Center

The Visual Center enables groups or individuals to view Shoah-related visual
materials on large or personal screens. These include documentaries, feature films,
and survivor testimonies taken by Yad Vashem and other organizations. Prominent
among these is the Visual History Collection of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual
History Foundation.

12) The Learning Center

The Learning Center allows visitors to explore historical, thematic, and moral
dilemmas and issues related to the Shoah. Through directed and independent
learning, computer stations provide access to a wide range of information from
internationally recognized historians, philosophers, and Yad Vashem's knowledge
base. The Learning Center is open to organized groups, independent groups, and
individuals.
13) Hall of Remembrance
An imposing, tent-like basalt structure that allows visitors to pay their respects to
the memories of the martyred dead. On the floor are the names of 22 Nazi murder
sites - extermination and concentration camps, transit camps and killing sites -
chosen from the hundreds of murder sites that existed throughout Europe. A
memorial flame burns continuously, next to a crypt containing ashes of victims
brought from the extermination camps.
Architect: Aryeh Elhanani

14) Pillar of Heroism

The Pillar of Heroism commemorates Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. The
inscription on the concrete block reads: "Now and forever in memory of those who
rebelled in the camps and ghettos, fought in the woods, in the underground and
with the Allied forces; braved their way to Eretz Israel; and died sanctifying the
name of God" .
Sculptor: Buki Schwartz

15) Children’s Memorial

This unique memorial, hollowed out from an underground cavern, is a tribute to
the approximately 1.5 million Jewish children who perished during the Holocaust.
Walking through the memorial, the visitor will hear the names of murdered
children, their ages and countries of origin in the background.
Architect: Moshe Safdie
16) Janusz Korczak Square
A tribute to the great Polish-Jewish educator Dr. Henrik Goldschmidt, known by his
pseudonym Janusz Korczak, who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto. Despite
his efforts to save his wards, Korczak and approximately 200 children from his
orphanage were sent to the Treblinka death camp on August 5, 1942.
Sculptor: Boris Saktsier

17) Archives and Library Building

The largest and most comprehensive repository of documentary material on the
Holocaust in the world, the Archive contains approximately 62 million pages and
more than 267,500 still photographs, as well as thousands of audio and videotaped
testimonies of survivors. These may be accessed by the public and viewed in the
appropriate rooms. Yad Vashem's library has the world's most comprehensive
collection of books on the Holocaust. It houses more than 90,000 titles in many
languages and thousands of periodicals.
Architect: Danny Lanski

18) Family Plaza

The Family Plaza, located between the International School for Holocaust Studies
and the Archives and Library Building, was built to commemorate the Jewish family
in the Holocaust. On permanent display within the Plaza is a sculpture, strategically
placed to overlook the impressive view of Jerusalem and its suburbs, by renowned
artist, Menashe Kadishman.
19) International School of Holocaust Studies
Committed to promoting Holocaust education and transmitting the legacy of the
Holocaust to the younger generations, the School offers educational activities to
pupils, students and soldiers, holds training seminars for teachers in Israel and
overseas, arranges symposia, and offers on-line teaching courses. The team of
experts at the school has developed a variety of educational programs and study
aids on the Holocaust.
Architects: David Guggenheim, Daniel Minz

20) Administration & Research Building

The International Institute for Holocaust Research plans and carries out research
projects, organizes international seminars and conferences, and coordinates joint
projects with research institutes around the world. The Institute also supports
young research scholars, and publishes research theses and conference
proceedings.

21) Monument to Jewish Soldiers and Partisans who fought against Nazi Germany
Approximately 1,500,000 Jews fought against the Nazis, as Allied soldiers, as
partisans, in the resistance movements, and in the ghettos. This monument is
dedicated to the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives in this struggle.
Sculptor: Bernard Fink
22) Partisans’ Panorama
The Partisans' Panorama pays tribute to the Jewish fighters who joined the
partisans during the Holocaust. The sculpture at its center is entitled "For is the
tree of the field man" (Deut. 20:19). The sculptor, Zadok Ben-David, chose the tree
as a symbol of the partisan fighter, whose life depended on the forest and its trees
as a place to hide. On a nearby stone the words of the partisans' anthem are
engraved in Hebrew, Yiddish and English.
Architect: Dan Zur

23) Valley of the Communities

The Valley is a massive 2.5 acre monument literally dug out of the natural bedrock.
The names of over 5,000 Jewish communities that were destroyed or barely
survived in the Holocaust are engraved on its 107 walls. In the center of the
monument stands Beit Hakehillot, which houses a gallery for temporary
exhibitions. Visitors can also see a short film there, depicting the world that was.
Architects: Dan Zur and Lipa Yahalom

24) Cattle Car – Memorial to the Deportees

The Memorial to the Deportees was established at Yad Vashem as a monument to
the millions of Jews herded onto cattle-cars and transported from all over Europe to
the extermination camps. An original German cattle-car given to Yad Vashem by the
Polish authorities stands at the center of the memorial site. On the adjacent wall,
the testimony of survivor Avraham Krzepicki is inscribed.
Architect: Moshe Safdie
25) Warsaw Ghetto Memorial – Wall of Remembrance
The Wall of Remembrance consists of two sculptures set in a wall of red bricks,
which symbolize the ghetto walls. In the center of the first sculpture, entitled "The
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising", stands the leader of the uprising, Mordechai Anielewicz.
The second sculpture, entitled "The Last March", depicts the mass deportation of
the Jews to the death camps.
Sculptor: Nathan Rapoport

26) Swedish Ambulance

Towards the end of Word War II when Nazi Germany's defeat became inevitable,
Count Folke Bernadotte, representing the Swedish Red Cross, reached an
agreement with top SS leaders, for the release of a number of prisoners from
German Concentration Camps. This is one of 36 busses of the Swedish Red Cross
which managed to enter Germany on March and April 1945 and transported 25,000
prisoners, among them several thousand Jews, mainly women, from Germany to
Sweden.

27) Monument to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a Protestant village in Haute-Loire in southern France.
During World War II, it became a haven for Jews fleeing from the Nazis and their
French collaborators. As seen in the picture, a small garden and plaque on the
grounds of Yad Vashem were dedicated to the people of Chambon.
28) Nieuwlande Memorial
On June 18, 1988 a monument to honor the village of Nieuwlande was built in Yad
Vashem, on the way down to the Valley of the Communities.

29) Garden of Righteous Among the Nations

This Garden was established in honor of the thousands of non-Jews who risked
their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Their names are engraved in
alphabetical order on walls arranged according to country.

30) The Memorial Cave

Since its inception, Yad Vashem has been charged with the sacred mission of
preserving the memory of each of the six million victims of the Holocaust. For the
family and friends of the murdered millions without a known gravesite of their own,
the yearning for a spiritual resting place and a physical place of remembrance for
their loved ones continues. For them, a plaque in Yad Vashem's Memorial Cave
bears the closest resemblance to a physical gravestone.