Holocaust Historian Yaffa Eliach’s Collection Dedicated At Yad Vashem
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The personal collection of Holocaust documentation of survivor and historian Prof. Yaffa Eliach was dedicated at the Yad Vashem memorial and museum in Jerusalem.
Eliach dedicated her life to documenting the events and victims of the Holocaust, particularly the pre-World War II life in her birthplace, the Lithuanian town of Eishishok. Eliach died in November 2016 at the age of 79.
Her personal collection, The Yaffa Eliach Shtetl Collection, was dedicated on Monday.
The collection was shipped to Yad Vashem in more than 500 archival containers weighing over a ton and is being cataloged as an independent archival division, available to both researchers and the greater public, according to Yad Vashem.
The collection is carefully organized and spans a half-century of recorded testimonies, transcripts, diaries, authentic memoirs and original documents in English, Hebrew, Polish, German, Russian and Yiddish; individual photographs and photo albums; and articles she composed regarding the history of Eastern European Jews in general and in Eishishok .
Eliach published several books about the Holocaust, but is most famous for her work “The Tower of Faces,” an exhibit featured at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that features 1,500 photographs of the approximately 3,500 Jews murdered in her hometown.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
