World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder has warmly welcomed Germany's pledge to give € 10 million (US $13 million) to Israel's Holocaust memorial institution Yad Vashem in Jerusalem over the next ten years. The agreement was signed Wednesday by visiting German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (pictured, left), who met with Shoah survivors at Yad Vashem. Lauder called the German government's commitment to preserving the memory of the Holocaust and to educating future generations about it "highly commendable".
Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev (pictured above, right) declared: "The German government recognizes Yad Vashem as the world center for Holocaust documentation, research and education, and understands its special meaning for the Jewish people and the world at large. This agreement strengthens the obligation of the German government and the German people regarding Holocaust remembrance."
Israel’s Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar (pictured, center) said that the agreement constituted an important source of funding and would be used to expand Yad Vashem's activities and to locate and purchase significant Holocaust documents from archives in Europe, making them accessible to the public via the internet, including through a new German version of Yad Vashem’s website. "This decision reflects the importance that the German government attaches to the subject of the Holocaust. The commemoration of the Holocaust is an endless task," Sa’ar pointed out. Holocaust suvivors and organizations representing them also welcomed the German support for the memorial institution.
Located on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem is a 45-acre complex containing the Holocaust History Museum, memorial sites such as the Children's Memorial and the Hall of Remembrance, the Museum of Holocaust Art, the Valley of the Communities, a synagogue, archives, a research institute, library, publishing house and an educational center. Yad Vashem honors non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust as Righteous among the Nations. It is the second most-visited tourist site in Israel after the Western Wall and receives about one million visitors annually.
Link: Yad Vashem website
