President Isaac Herzog toured the Holocaust Museum in the city of Iași on Sunday during his state visit to Romania.
At the museum, President Herzog was shown exhibitions and artifacts commemorating the life of the city's Jewish community, alongside documentation of the Iași pogrom during the Holocaust.
At the conclusion of the tour, President Herzog unveiled a memorial plaque as part of the shared commitment to commemorating the victims, preserving Jewish heritage in Romania, and deepening the partnership between Israel and Romania in the fight against antisemitism.
“We are at the square where it all started, the massacre in Iași 85 years ago, where thousands and thousands of Jews were butchered, slaughtered, and tortured both on-site, in pits, in common graves, and, of course, in the death trains. This museum depicts the pain, the agony, the courage, the bravery, and, of course, the enormous atrocity," Herzog stated.
He expressed thanks to the city of Iași and the initiators of the museum and site and invited the whole world to see it, explaining that "if you want to understand cruelty, and if you want to understand how cruelty can emanate, and all of a sudden, rage and kill people who have lived here for hundreds of years, one has to come see this site. I want to thank you, Mr. Mayor, for your leadership and all those whose efforts brought this incredible memorial site and museum into being."
He added that “to combat antisemitism, we have to teach the young generation how it starts and where it can lead. Israel is the only homeland of the Jewish people around the world, the only shelter for Jews all over the world. We are reminded time and again why our cause is just, why we have to protect ourselves, and why we have to remember and to commemorate the Holocaust; its lessons are in places like this site."