March 2, 2001
YAD VASHEM DIRECTORS VISIT UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Avner Shalev, and Ishai Amrami, Director-General of the Yad Vashem Directorate met with the Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Sara Bloomfield, and other Museum representatives to discuss new areas of cooperation and ways the two institutions can work together to further Holocaust education and remembrance and explore new cooperative initiatives. Areas under consideration include establishing a scholarly exchange program involving both institutions and joint publishing projects.
The Museum and Yad Vashem already work closely on many projects. Both institutions have loaned each other artifacts for special exhibitions and continue longstanding and extensive cooperation in the collection of archival materials relating to the Holocaust. Currently, David Bankier, Director of Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research serves as Deputy Editor of the Museum’s Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Museum staff members have participated in Yad Vashem sponsored conferences and training sessions, and plans are in development to have Yad Vashem educators attend Museum education workshops. And just last month, the Chair of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Chair Emeritus Miles Lerman and Director Bloomfield met in Jerusalem with Mr. Shalev and his staff to look at new ways to increase cooperation.
“The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem share a common, profoundly important mission in memorializing the Holocaust,” states Sara Bloomfield. “We’re particularly proud to be working with them internationally to further this goal through the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research.”
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is America’s national institution for the documentation, study and interpretation of Holocaust history, and serves as this country’s memorial to the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust. Since opening in April 1993, the Museum has welcomed more than 15 million visitors. The Museum’s primary mission is to advance and disseminate knowledge about this unprecedented tragedy; to preserve the memory of those who suffered; and to encourage its visitors to reflect upon the moral questions raised by the events of the Holocaust as well as their own responsibilities as citizens of a democracy.
