Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, was established in 1953 by an act of Israel’s Knesset (parliament) to commemorate the six million Jewish men, women, and children murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. Located on the western slope of Mount Herzl on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem, the site was chosen specifically because the area was not at that point crowded out with competing draws of historical significance.
Yad Vashem is charged with educating both Israeli citizens and the global community, through documentation and publication, about the tragic events of the Holocaust (in Hebrew, HaShoah). The site consists of a large complex containing the Holocaust History Museum, memorial sites such as the Children’s Memorial and the Hall of Remembrance, the Museum of Holocaust Art, sculptures, outdoor commemorative sites such as the Valley of the Communities, a synagogue, a research institute with archives, a library, a publishing house, and an educational center named the International School for Holocaust Studies.
Included among Yad Vashem’s stated tasks are the following: to commemorate the Jews murdered by the Nazis; to commemorate the destroyed communities; to acknowledge the heroism of those who fought against the Nazis; to acknowledge the non-Jews, called Hasidei Umot Ha-Olam, or “Righteous among the Nations,” who risked their lives to save Jews; to establish appropriate projects of memorialization; to do appropriate research to tell both the story of the victims and the heroes as well as the lessons to be learned; and to represent the State of Israel where like-minded projects are involved.
In pursuit of its principal mission of education, the International School for Holocaust Studies each year holds courses for over 100,000 students, 50,000 soldiers, and thousands of educators from around the world. Courses for teachers are offered in seven languages in addition to Hebrew, and the school also sends its faculty abroad to advance education about the Holocaust.
Yad Vashem also engages in important publication ventures, such as producing Yad Vashem Studies, a peer-reviewed semi-annual scholarly journal on the Shoah. Published since 1957, it appears in both English and Hebrew editions and deals with the latest research on various aspects of the Holocaust. In addition, Yad Vashem publishes record books of Jewish communities; a multivolume Comprehensive History of the Holocaust; and has primary responsibility for the development, revision, and publication of the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust.
As an academic institution, Yad Vashem’s library and archives contain more than 50 million pages of testimony, 80,000 volumes, nearly 100,000 photographs, film footage and the videotaped testimonies of survivors, and 4,500 periodicals. Throughout the year it also hosts numerous conferences on a wide array of issues related to the Holocaust; these are attended by scholars and educators from across the globe. Yad Vashem’s extensive website appears in several languages, including English, Hebrew, Russian, German, Spanish, Farsi, and Arabic.
Yad Vashem, established in Jerusalem in 1953, is Israel’s official site of memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It consists of a Holocaust History Museum, memorial sites such as the Children’s Memorial and the Hall of Remembrance, a Museum of Holocaust Art, various sculptures and outdoor commemorative sites such as the Valley of the Communities, a synagogue, a research institute with archives, a library, a publishing house, and an educational center known as the International Institute for Holocaust Studies. Pictured is one of the memorial sites at Yad Vashem. (Michael Nicholson/Corbis via Getty Images)
Central state ceremonies are held at Yad Vashem each year on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day according to the Hebrew calendar, 27th day of Nisan). This corresponds to the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt in April 1943. The focus of the remembrance service takes place at the Hall of Remembrance (Ohel Yizkor), where an eternal flame burns in memory of those murdered by the Nazis. A crypt in front of the memorial flame contains ashes of victims.
A core goal of Yad Vashem’s founders was to recognize non-Jews who, at enormous personal risk and without financial or ulterior motives, chose to save Jews during the Holocaust. Those recognized by Israel as among the Righteous are honored in a section of Yad Vashem known as the Garden of the Righteous, an avenue of carob trees planted in honor of the Righteous among the Nations. In many cases, these trees have been planted by the recipients themselves or by members of their family.
Other important sections of Yad Vashem include the Hall of Names, where a display features 600 photographs of Holocaust victims and fragments of Pages of Testimony that are reflected in a pool commemorating the victims whose names are unknown. Inside the hall can be found the approximately 2.2 million Pages of Testimony collected by Yad Vashem thus far. Empty spaces have been set aside for Pages that have not yet been forthcoming from families—it is recognized that in many cases, this will be impossible owing to whole families that were wiped out by the Nazis. In addition, the approximately 1.5 million Jewish children who were murdered by the Nazis have been remembered in a designated Children’s Memorial, where the names, ages, and birthplaces of those known to have died are continually recited.
Yad Vashem also houses the world’s largest collection of artwork produced by Jews and other victims of Nazi occupation in 1933–1945, as well as the Valley of the Communities, a 2.5-acre monument in which the names of over 5,000 Jewish communities that were destroyed (and those few that survived) are engraved.
The name of the overall complex is taken from a verse in the Book of Isaiah: “Even unto them will I give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name [yad vashem] better than sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that shall never be effaced” (Isaiah 56:5). This reference was considered suitable for the Holocaust memorial, as it symbolized a national place of commemoration from the Jewish people to those who have no one to carry their name after death.
PAUL R. BARTROP
See also: Bauer, Yehuda; Bingham, Harry; Gutman, Israel; Museums and Memorials; Righteous among the Nations; Survivor Testimony; USC Shoah Foundation
Further Reading
Gutterman, Bella, and Avner Shalev (Eds.). To Bear Witness: Holocaust Remembrance at Yad Vashem. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2005.
Harel, Dorit. Facts and Feelings: Dilemmas in Designing the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010.
Ockman, Joan, and Moshe Safdie et al. Yad Vashem: Moshe Safdie—The Architecture of Memory. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2006.
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Yellow Star
The yellow star was a badge that Jews throughout Nazi-occupied Europe were forced to wear as a means of identification. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 came several local decrees that required Jews to wear a distinctive sign in the area known as the Generalgouvernement. One of the initial signs was a white armband with a blue Star of David; in other areas a yellow badge in the form of the Star of David was attached to the left side of the breast and on the back. The requirement that all Jews wear the Star of David, inscribed with faux Hebrew lettering spelling out the German word Jude (Jew), was then extended to all Jews over the age of six in the Reich. By the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, a decree issued on September 19, 1941, and signed by SS Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, spread the requirement to other German-occupied territories in Europe and Northern Africa. The identifying yellow Star of David was similar in design in most of the German-occupied territories, however the local language for the word Jew was used: Juif in French, Jood in Dutch, and so on.
The practice forcing Jews to wear badges or distinguishing articles of clothing by law has been found in Europe as far back as the 13th century. Jews were required to wear distinguishing garments through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period. The practice was largely phased out during the 17th and 18th centuries, and finally abolished in Western Europe during the French Revolution and the emancipation of the Western European Jews throughout the 19th century.
The Nazis resurrected the practice of making Jews wear identifying articles of clothing during the Holocaust. In 1938 they compelled Jewish shopkeepers to display the words “Jewish business” in their windows but did not introduce distinctive signs to be worn until after the occupation of Poland. Earlier, following the Kristallnacht pogrom known as the “Night of Broken Glass” (November 9–10, 1938), it was Reinhard Heydrich who first recommended that Jews should wear identifying badges, but it was not until after the September 1939 invasion of Poland that the Nazis introduced the mandatory wearing of badges.
The first instance of Jews being forced to wear identifying badges was in the town of Włocławek in central Poland by SS-Obergruppenführer Josef Kramer. On October 24, 1939, without awaiting orders, Kramer ordered that all Jews in Włocławek were to wear a distinctive 15-centimeter sign on their back in the form of a yellow triangle. Other commanders in the occupied east rapidly adopted the identifying badge and by the end of the year, all Jews, regardless of age or sex, in the Polish territories were required to wear badges. It was announced that severe punishment was in store for any Jews who did not wear the identification on the front and back of their clothing. Due to the antisemitic sentiments prevalent among certain sectors of the Polish public, the new German measure was met with enthusiasm. After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), the Germans continued to require Jews to wear badges in all newly conquered territories.
A Croatian Jew, left, wears the symbol that all Jews in Yugoslavia had to display on their chest and back during World War II. Alongside, a Jewish woman wears the badge which is of yellow cloth with the Star of David. Jews in many parts of Nazi Europe were required to wear a yellow cloth patch emblazoned with a Star of David in order to mark them off as Jews within a non-Jewish environment. In Poland, the practice began when Jews were forced to wear a white armband with a blue Star of David on it, but this underwent a change over time. In many places, the German word Jude (Jew) was added to the star; this was then gradually introduced in non-German speaking areas in occupied Europe (for example, Juif in French or Jood in Dutch). (AP Photo)
In the Old Reich proper, the order for all Jews to wear identifying badges was issued on September 1, 1941, and applied on September 19. That date also applied to the Jews of Moravia, Slovakia, and Bohemia. Dates for other parts of Europe varied. In Holland, the order was applied in May 1942; in Belgium and France in June 1942; in Bulgaria, it was September 1942; in Greece, February 1942; and in Hungary in April 1944. It was only in Denmark that the Germans were unable to impose the identification regulation. According to popular legend, King Christian X had threatened to wear the badge himself had the Germans imposed the regulation on his country’s Jewish population. The story is apocryphal, but it represents the dedication the Danish king felt for his country’s Jews.
The age at which Jews were required to wear the identification badges was six years of age for Germany and most of Western Europe, and 10 years of age for most of Eastern Europe; however, in certain areas the age differed. In some ghettos even Jewish babies had to wear identifying armbands or stars.
The type of identifying badge also varied, though many took varying forms of a yellow badge in the shape of the Star of David. The badge was sometimes inscribed with the letter J, written in the local language, with stylized Hebrew-style lettering. Other forms of identification included white armbands with a blue Star of David, yellow arm bands with or without inscription, a Shield of David in various colors, a yellow button, a metal tag inscribed with a J, a yellow triangle, or a yellow circle. When the Jews were forced to live in ghettos they were sometimes also made to wear distinctive signs indicating the region in which the ghetto was located. In some ghettos, certain individuals were given unique badges to identify them as having specials skills; these groups included police officers, doctors, and factory workers. Jews were responsible for buying and distributing their own badges. Jews caught without their badge could be fined, imprisoned, or even executed.
The main objective in the introduction of the identifying badges for Jews was to create a divide between the Jews and the non-Jews, and to restrict Jewish movement. The identification badge was also a psychological tactic aimed at dehumanizing the Jews of Europe, marking them as different and inferior to everyone else. There was little choice to be had: either conceal the identification badge and, if caught, risk severe punishment; or wear the badge and become an easy target. Thus, the distinctive badges became an effective means to help the Germans facilitate their plan to exterminate the Jews. Helmut Knochen, chief of the Security Police in France and Belgium, stated that the yellow badge was “another step on the road to the Final Solution.”
Reactions to the identification badges varied throughout Europe. Some Jews reacted with dignity to the order and wore the identification badge as if it were a decoration, not realizing the danger of wearing the distinctive sign. Nearly all Polish Jews wore the identification badges for fear of severe punishment; however, they felt bitter about having to wear it. Some non-Jewish Poles met the identification policy with enthusiasm, seeing it as an opportunity to remove the Jews from commercial, economic, and public life. In Germany, where Jews had already been experiencing public hatred for years, the introduction of the identification badges was met with a wave of Jewish suicides.
The badge was not made compulsory in the unoccupied zone of France. In the occupied zone, however, the order enforced the wearing of the yellow star for all Jews older than six. Many French Jews refused to wear the badge, while some French non-Jews wore the identification badges themselves to express empathy for the Jews. In Czechoslovakia, the government had to ban hat tipping toward Jews, which became popular as protests against the German occupation. In Holland, an underground newspaper expressed its solidarity with the Jews by printing 300,000 stars, inscribed with words such as, “Jews and non-Jews are one and the same” or “Jews and non-Jews stand united in their struggle!”
JESSICA EVERS
See also: Generalgouvernement; Ghettos; Heydrich, Reinhard
Further Reading
Grunwald-Spier, Agnes. Who Betrayed the Jews? The Realities of Nazi Persecution in the Holocaust. Stroud (UK): History Press, 2016.
Schoenberner, Gerhard. The Yellow Star: The Persecution of the Jews in Europe, 1933–1945. New York: Fordham University Press, 2004.
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Yom Hashoah
Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is a Jewish commemoration day dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust. Shoah is a Hebrew word meaning “catastrophe” or “utter destruction.”
Yom Hashoah is held on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan (which occurs in late April or early May on the Common Era calendar) and is an official holiday in Israel. In 2005 the United Nations designated January 27 as the international Holocaust Memorial Day, and that date is acknowledged in most of the countries of the European Union. Neither day is recognized in the United States, but the Jewish community and many in the Christian community hold a commemoration on or near Yom Hashoah.
The day was inaugurated by law in Israel in 1953. Yom Hashoah is not a religious day in the Jewish liturgical calendar, and there is no set ritual. Many people will light candles (often 6 candles symbolic of the 6 million who died), though much greater emphasis is placed upon holding some form of commemoration rather than the form the observance will take. In Israel, a siren will sound, at which point everyone stops any activity in which they are engaged—including cars on the roads and highways. Integral to the day is the retelling of the stories of what people experienced. The United Kingdom first celebrated a Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2001, the year following the opening of a permanent Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.
J. GORDON MELTON
See also: International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Further Reading
Berman, Judith E. Holocaust Remembrance in Australian Jewish Communities. Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 2002.
Cargas, Harry James. A Holocaust Commemoration for Days of Remembrance: For Communities, Churches, Centers and for Home Use. Philadelphia: Holocaust Remembrance Foundation, 1982.
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Yoran, Shalom
Shalom Yoran was a Holocaust survivor, a Jewish partisan during World War II, and an author who published a highly acclaimed memoir in 1996. Yoran was born Selim Sznycer near Warsaw, Poland, on June 29, 1925. In September 1942, as Nazi troops descended upon his hometown of Raciaz, his world was turned upside down. His family was forced from its home, and as the Nazis were rounding up the town’s Jews Yoran and his elder brother managed to escape into nearby woods. They left behind their mother and father, both of whom eventually perished (almost all of Raciaz’s Jews died in the Holocaust). The brothers spent a frigid winter hidden in an underground shelter in Poland; in the spring of 1943, they began their first insurgency mission against the Nazis by torching a factory that made gun parts for German weapons. “This was the turning point in the war,” wrote Yoran in his memoir, as it made him not merely a victim but rather a partisan who could fight back and avenge the death of his parents and others. “No person should succumb to brutality without putting up a resistance,” he counseled.
From that point forward, Yoran and his brother engaged in a host of partisan exploits, including sabotage, shooting German soldiers, planting land mines, and destroying bridges and other infrastructure. They eventually reached northeast Poland, near the Belarus border, and joined other Jewish insurgents who were working with Soviet troops. Yoran and his brother encountered rampant antisemitism even among Soviet and non-Jewish Polish forces. It was then, wrote Yoran, that he began to long for a Jewish homeland, which helped him to persevere, even amidst much depravation and discrimination.
Toward the end of World War II, Yoran and his brother joined the Soviet-controlled Polish Army as it made its way into the German homeland. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Yoran made his way to British-controlled Palestine and there helped facilitate Jewish immigration, despite Britain’s refusal to allow Jews entry. He eventually became a legal resident of Palestine and adopted the name Shalom Yoran. After the founding of Israel in 1948, he joined the Israeli Air Force and later became an executive for an Israeli aircraft maker. In the late 1970s he moved to the United States, where he remained in the aircraft industry.
When he moved from Israel, he discovered a pile of notebooks and diaries he had kept during and after the war, which became the basis for his 1996 memoir, Defiant: A True Story of Escape, Survival, and Resistance. Yoran was a co-founder of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City and spoke widely about his wartime experiences after publishing his book. After a period of declining health, he died in New York on September 9, 2013.
PAUL G. PIERPAOLI JR.
See also: Jewish Partisans; Survivor Testimony
Further Reading
Yoran, Shalom. Defiant: A True Story of Escape, Survival, and Resistance. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
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Yugoslavia
A European country in the western Balkans, Yugoslavia was the creation of World War I. It was one of the most diverse and complex of European countries, given that it was a union of multiple countries and provinces, many of which had been at odds—if not at war—with each other, sometimes with histories of conflict going back centuries. The Axis occupation during World War II, and the treatment of Yugoslavia’s Jews, was no less complex.
During the interwar years, “Yugoslavia” (“Land of the South Slavs”) was a union of various countries and regions, including Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo. It was also a monarchy—the Kingdom of Yugoslavia—with King Alexander of Serbia as its monarch. It had a total population before the outbreak of World War II of approximately 15.5 million people, 43% of whom were Serbs, 37% Croats, and 7% each Slovenians and Macedonians. Of the approximately 80,000 Jews in Yugoslavia, 40,000 were in Croatia, 16,000 in each of Serbia and the Bacˇka region of Vojvodina, and 8,000 in Macedonia. Most Jews belonged to the middle class and could be found in industry, commerce, artisan activities, and banking.
Three major religions layered a religious division over the nationalism that already separated the countries. Sitting as it does on the dividing line between Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity, it is no surprise that the westernmost areas in Yugoslavia—Slovenia and Croatia—were predominantly Roman Catholic, while the easternmost country—that is, that which is geographically closest to Istanbul—namely, Serbia, was predominantly Orthodox Christian. With the defeat of Serbia by the Ottoman Empire in 1389, Islam was introduced into the region, explaining why, for example, Bosnia’s population includes a plurality of Muslims, and why Kosovo’s population is overwhelmingly Muslim.
The Axis invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II was consistent with the variegated nature of the country. Almost immediately after neutral Yugoslavia finally agreed to join the Axis powers and signed the Tripartite Pact on March 25, 1941, the highly unpopular decision triggered an overthrow of the regent, Prince Paul (brother of Alexander who was assassinated in 1934), who was replaced by Peter, Alexander’s son. Hitler, upon hearing of the change in the monarchy and the rejection of the Tripartite Pact, made the decision to invade Yugoslavia.
On April 6, 1941, Germany and its allies, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria, invaded Yugoslavia, and within 10 days Yugoslavia surrendered. Occupation of the country was split among the Axis powers: Serbia and the region of Banat in Vojvodina were occupied by Germany; Montenegro, southwest Slovenia, most of the Adriatic coast, and Kosovo were controlled by Italy; Croatia, which annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, was renamed the Independent State of Croatia, controlled by Germany and governed by the fascist, nationalist Ustashe movement, a puppet government of the Nazis; the Bacˇka and Baranja regions of Vojvodina were occupied by Hungary; and Macedonia was occupied by Bulgaria. To some degree, how the Jews fared depended on the part of Yugoslavia in which they lived.
Serbia was governed by a Nazi puppet government headed by its prime minister, Milan Nedić. One of the first acts under the German occupation was the requirement that all Jews register with the government, followed shortly by a number of other anti-Jewish laws and restrictions, including removal of Jews from public service, the requirement of wearing a yellow badge, and assignment to forced labor units. Several detention and concentration camps were established, including Topovske Šupe, and later, Semlin (Zemun, or Sajmište). As a result of partisan and Chetnik (pro-monarchists) resistance, Hitler ordered that 100 Jews be killed for each German killed. This proved to be disastrous for the Jews, resulting in the murder of about 8,000 Jewish males. With some 6,300 women and children killed by the use of a gas van over a three-month period in early 1942, almost all of the Jews of Serbia had been murdered.
The Jews in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina suffered greatly under the so-called Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH). Headed by Ante Pavelić, the Ustashe government was said to have stunned even the Nazis by its cruelty. It was responsible for the murder of perhaps as many as 340,000 Serbs in 1941 and 1942, and their treatment of the Jews was no less lethal.
The Ustashe government established camps throughout the occupied territory, including Jadovno (an extermination camp established in April 1941) and the infamous Jasenovac (actually a complex of five camps), in which as many as 20,000 Jews were killed. In addition, about 7,000 Jews were turned over to the Germans and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The Italian occupation zone of Croatia—along the Adriatic coast—was a much different environment for the Jews. Italy refused to transport the Jews to German camps, and instead sent some to the island of Rab (from which they were liberated) off the Adriatic coast, and others to refugee camps in southern Italy.
The prewar Jewish population of 14,000 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had been incorporated into Croatia, found itself in the hands of the Germans. Among other actions, 3,000 Jews were sent by the German occupiers to Jasenovac in the middle of November 1941, with a total of about 9,000 Jews sent there by the end of August 1942. Some 6,000 to 7,000 children were killed there.
In January 1942 the Hungarian occupiers of the Bacˇka and Baranja regions of Vojvodina shot 600 Jews in the city of Nova Sad. After Germany invaded Hungary in March 1944, 16,000 Jews from the Bacˇka and Baranja regions were transported to the custody of the Germans who sent them to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
More than 7,000 Jews in Hungarian-occupied Macedonia were sent to a transit camp in Skopje in March 1943, and from there to the extermination camp of Treblinka.
These were only some of the actions taken against the Jews in Yugoslavia during the Holocaust. In total, more than 66,000 Yugoslavian Jews were killed between 1941 and 1945. About 4,500 Jews were active in the partisan resistance movement.
Jews were not the only people to suffer in Yugoslavia during World War II. As many as 25,000 Roma were killed in Croatia alone, while it is estimated that throughout Yugoslavia as many as 90,000 Roma were killed in total. When combined with the approximately 66,000 Jews and over 300,000 Serbs (killed at the hands of the Croats), it is clear that Yugoslavia was the site of widespread mass murder.
MICHAEL DICKERMAN
See also: Bulgaria; Croatia; Horthy, Miklós; Hungary; Italy; Jasenovac; Pavelić, Ante; Serbia; Szenes, Hannah; Ustashe; Waldheim Affair
Further Reading
Greble, Emily. Sarajevo, 1941–1945: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Hitler’s Europe. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press, 2011.
Mojzes, Paul. Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century. Lanham (MD): Rowman & Littlefield, 2011.
Ramet, Sabrina P., and Ola Listhaug (Eds.). Serbia and the Serbs in World War Two. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Tomasevich, Jozo. War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941–1945: Occupation and Collaboration. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press, 2001.