Government leaders and dignitaries from at least 15 countries, as well as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, will join Israeli President Moshe Katzav, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Education Minister Limor Livnat in inaugurating the new Museum tomorrow. They will then participate in a special assembly at Yad Vashem Wednesday morning, entitled, "Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future." The new Museum is set to open to the public at the end of March.
The New Holocaust History Museum, which will emphasize the human narrative aspects of the Nazi Holocaust, has been ten years in the making. It has two dimensions: informational and experiential. Yad Vashem announces that the New Museum will use many artifacts in telling the story, together with the documentary element familiar in the current museum. It will try to tell both the macro story and the micro stories of individuals and small groups, stressing the personal story in the historical and thematic narrative.
The New Holocaust History Museum covers some 4,200 square meters, or just over an acre - four times the size of the current Historical Museum.
Yad Vashem will use the new Museum as its main platform for imparting the Holocaust legacy to visitors. According to the Yad Vashem announcement, the victims are the focus, instead of being portrayed as anonymous objects being acted upon by their persecutors, and visitors will leave with a wider perspective on the protection of humanity’s basic values and Jewish continuity.
Specifically, the Museum weaves more than 90 personal stories into a thematic and historical narrative, using authentic artifacts, testimonies, documentary evidence, archival sources, films, art and even music.
World-renowned architect Moshe Safdie designed a unique building for the new Museum. “The story of the Holocaust has no equal,” Safdie says. “I felt that it cannot be accommodated in a conventional building. I wanted it to be like an archeological remnant. Responding to Yad Vashem's request to preserve the pastoral character of the Mount of Remembrance, and that the Hall of Remembrance maintain its centrality, I conceived of a prism-like structure that cuts through the mountain from the south, extending 200 meters to the north.”
At the end of the Museum’s historical narrative is the Hall of Names – a repository for the Pages of Testimony of millions of Holocaust victims, a memorial to those who perished. In a separate room, visitors can conduct searches of the digitized Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names (also online at www.yadvashem.org).
Visitors enter the Hall in the circular space between two reciprocal cones onto an elevated ring-shaped platform between them. Surrounding the platform is the circular repository, housing the Pages of Testimony collected so far, with empty spaces for testimonies not yet submitted – room for six million Pages in total.
A basic guideline for the museum’s design was to create a visitor’s route dictated by the evolving narrative. As such, Safdie devised a central walkway (prism) with underground exhibition galleries on either side. The visitor is guided into the adjacent galleries by a series of impassable gaps, created by museum designer Dorit Harel, extending along the breadth of the prism floor. Displaying items from different events, the gaps symbolize turning points in the Holocaust, and serve as chapter headings for the evolving narrative of the exhibition. Subtly illuminated by skylights, nine chapters (galleries) depict the history of the Holocaust through exclusive exhibits and new presentation techniques.
The New Holocaust History Museum, which will emphasize the human narrative aspects of the Nazi Holocaust, has been ten years in the making. It has two dimensions: informational and experiential. Yad Vashem announces that the New Museum will use many artifacts in telling the story, together with the documentary element familiar in the current museum. It will try to tell both the macro story and the micro stories of individuals and small groups, stressing the personal story in the historical and thematic narrative.
The New Holocaust History Museum covers some 4,200 square meters, or just over an acre - four times the size of the current Historical Museum.
Yad Vashem will use the new Museum as its main platform for imparting the Holocaust legacy to visitors. According to the Yad Vashem announcement, the victims are the focus, instead of being portrayed as anonymous objects being acted upon by their persecutors, and visitors will leave with a wider perspective on the protection of humanity’s basic values and Jewish continuity.
Specifically, the Museum weaves more than 90 personal stories into a thematic and historical narrative, using authentic artifacts, testimonies, documentary evidence, archival sources, films, art and even music.
World-renowned architect Moshe Safdie designed a unique building for the new Museum. “The story of the Holocaust has no equal,” Safdie says. “I felt that it cannot be accommodated in a conventional building. I wanted it to be like an archeological remnant. Responding to Yad Vashem's request to preserve the pastoral character of the Mount of Remembrance, and that the Hall of Remembrance maintain its centrality, I conceived of a prism-like structure that cuts through the mountain from the south, extending 200 meters to the north.”
At the end of the Museum’s historical narrative is the Hall of Names – a repository for the Pages of Testimony of millions of Holocaust victims, a memorial to those who perished. In a separate room, visitors can conduct searches of the digitized Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names (also online at www.yadvashem.org).
Visitors enter the Hall in the circular space between two reciprocal cones onto an elevated ring-shaped platform between them. Surrounding the platform is the circular repository, housing the Pages of Testimony collected so far, with empty spaces for testimonies not yet submitted – room for six million Pages in total.
A basic guideline for the museum’s design was to create a visitor’s route dictated by the evolving narrative. As such, Safdie devised a central walkway (prism) with underground exhibition galleries on either side. The visitor is guided into the adjacent galleries by a series of impassable gaps, created by museum designer Dorit Harel, extending along the breadth of the prism floor. Displaying items from different events, the gaps symbolize turning points in the Holocaust, and serve as chapter headings for the evolving narrative of the exhibition. Subtly illuminated by skylights, nine chapters (galleries) depict the history of the Holocaust through exclusive exhibits and new presentation techniques.