December 18, 2020 11:37 am Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, at a press conference in Oswiecim, Poland, Jan. 26, 2020. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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(JTA) As the head of Poland’s Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, Piotr Cywiński and his staff rarely intervene in matters that don’t concern their imposing institution.
They even sit out debates that do concern them, such as Poland’s controversial outlawing in 2018 of rhetoric that blames the country for Nazi crimes.
“I am concerned about the future of this institution,” Cywiński told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about Yad Vashem in a telephone interview last week.
Effi Eitam (Photo: Juda S. Engelmayer/Wikimedia)
For nearly 70 years Yad Vashem, the world-renowned Holocaust museum established in Jerusalem, has bolstered Israel’s claim to act as guardian and interpreter of the lessons of the Nazi genocide that destroyed much of European Jewry during the Second World War.
Before the pandemic, more than a million visitors passed annually through its doors, and the museum was considered an all but mandatory stop for world leaders visiting Israel.
Research by Yad Vashem’s distinguished historians has guided other museums and research institutes around the world in how they understand and present the Holocaust. The museum stages influential conferences for scholars, and produces key texts on the Holocaust.
Outgoing Yad Vashem chair ready to work with any successor | JNS clevelandjewishnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from clevelandjewishnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Outgoing Yad Vashem chair ‘ready to work with any successor’
Outgoing Yad Vashem chair ‘ready to work with any successor’
Avner Shalev says he’s less worried about a “revolt” by researchers over a controversial appointment for his successor than he is about donations drying up due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Omer Lachmanovitch
Yad Vashem chair Avner Shalev at the museum s exhibition “Flashes of Memory” in Jerusalem on Jan. 24, 2018. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90.
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(December 17, 2020 / Israel Hayom) This past summer, Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev announced that he would be resigning after 27 years as head of Israel’s Holocaust memorial.
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