ארכיון יד ושם / Yad Vashem Archives
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ארכיון יד ושם / Yad Vashem Archives
In 1953, the Israeli Knesset enacted the Yad Vashem Law, which determined that among its other missions, the task of Yad Vashem is “to collect, examine and publish testimony of the disaster and the heroism it called forth…” Indeed, efforts to document the Holocaust had begun long before the passage of the law. From the Nazi rise to power in Germany, and throughout World War II, there were those who documented the events as they were taking place, often under the harshest conditions. Immediately after the war, centers for documentation and the collection of testimonies were established in many places around the world, including Munich, Warsaw, Lodz, Lublin, Paris, Bratislava, Budapest and other locations. The information about what was happening in Europe began to reach the Jewish community of Eretz Israel during the war. Even before the enormity of the disaster became clear, Mordechai Shenhavi initiated a Commemorative Project for the Jews of Europe that would include an archive. The Yad Vashem Archives began its official activities in 1946, under the direction of Dr. Sarah Friedlander, who had been born in Budapest and saved on the Kasztner train.