The Challenge of Commemorating the Holocaust in Yad Vashem, 1953-1975

In my talk, I examine the transformation in Yad Vashem’s institutional conception with regard to commemoration of the Holocaust from the 1950s up until the early 1970s, when the first stage of designing the Mount of Remembrance was completed. From the inception of Yad Vashem prior to the founding of the state, and more strongly from when the Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance (Yad Vashem) Law was passed by Israel’s Knesset in August 1953, the heads of the institution grappled with the question of its physical appearance and its symbolic significance. The need to plan and construct a site of memory forced them to confront weighty issues pertaining to their conception of Holocaust memory. Yad Vashem’s leadership wondered what was meant by the “name and memory” that appears in the Law, as did the group of architects who planned the complex, deliberating how they should design the place so that it would serve as a site of memory and inspiration for future generations. These questions obviously had implications for the architecture and found expression in the many plans proposed for Yad Vashem over the years, but the present discussion focuses on debates among the institution’s management regarding the appearance of the remembrance site.