By Mabel Kabba
A hot summer afternoon in Jeruseleam, a delegation of twelve senior news editors from three west Aftrican countries Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana, on the invitation of the State of the Embassy of the State of Israel in Accra, had a tour of one of Israel’s largest museum to the Holocaust on the Mount of Remembrance, Har HaZikaron, in western Jerusalem.
Seated on a 18-hectare campus, Yad Vashem isn’t just one museum. It’s a center to the Holocaust that teaches about what happens when hatred, propaganda, and indifference are left unchecked.
The museum is a triangular concrete structure that cuts through the mountain, with a 200-meter skylight. The walkway leads through 9 galleries. Key parts of which has theHall of Names at Yad Vashem that holds millions of “Pages of Testimony” submitted by families of the Righteous Among the Nations whom are Non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews , an Education center to teach the younger generation, archives, and survivor testimony which helps understand whathappened, so it doesn’t happen again.
Beyond mourning, Yad Vashem’s purpose was to bring the memory into the Zionist project and the new State of Israel. Its position is that the Holocaust was a unique event, not just a continuation of past persecution.
THE “RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS” Is unique to Yad Vashem and started in 1963. Where anyone can nominate a non-Jew who risked their life to save Jews during 1939-1945.A commission verifies with 2+ testimonies or documents.If approved: Medal, certificate, name on the Wall of Honor, and a tree planted in the Garden.
Today it also does education, publishes materials, and represents Israel in international commemoration projects.
You exit the museum onto a terrace overlooking the Jerusalem Forest — going from darkness into light is part of the design.
