At the entrance to Yad Vashem, the visitor is greeted by an old clip of Jewish children in the Ukraine singing “Hatikva,” the national anthem. The visit ends with the establishment of the State of Israel.

Still, one notable difference is that the Arabs are no longer presented as Nazis: the placing of the 1941 photo of Hitler meeting the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is no longer as accentuated as before. The museum has also adopted a neutral stance concerning the Nazi-established “Jewish Councils,” otherwise known as Judenrat. The visitors can now draw up their judgment of the councils based on their activities in both the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos. The impression now is that the Judenrat leaders too, were victims of the Holocaust. Formerly, they were all considered villains.

One of the striking differences concerns the museum’s depiction of Rejso, Israel Kestner, one the leaders of Hungarian Jewry. In 1955, an Israeli court ruled that Kestner had “sold his soul to the devil” after he was accused of being a Nazi collaborator. He was murdered two years later in Tel Aviv. Now, Kestner’s contacts with the Nazis are depicted as praiseworthy actions that saved Jews. The change is due, partially, to the fact that Kestner’s friend, Yosef “Tommy” Lapid, served as Yad Vashem’s chairman. The wording under Kestner’s photograph – as in all other captions in the museum – is formulated in an extremely cautious manner, weighing the meaning of every single word. The English version is slightly more positive than the Hebrew.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

For more, go to Haaretz.com

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount