Yad Vashem

YAD VASHEM
11th in the "Views of Jerusalem" Numismatic Bullion Series

Yad Vashem - the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem - is the official institute of the State of Israel established to memorialize, testify, research and educate on the Holocaust. Its founding began in 1945, and it was declared an official institute in 1953, in accordance with the Martyrs' and Heroes Remembrance (Yad Vashem) Law. Located on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem and stretching over 180 dunam, the Yad Vashem building contains the largest collection in the world of documents, pictures, diaries, memories and testimonies of the Holocaust. The name “Yad Vashem” is taken from the biblical verse “I will give them, in My House and in My walls, a monument and a name (Yad Vashem) that shall never be cut off (Isaiah 56:5).

Over the years, Yad Vashem has become a world center for commemoration of the Holocaust. Its mission is to commemorate and document the events, collect testimonies and publish them, gather documents, objects and names of the victims and safeguard their memories, together with research and education. Yad Vashem documents the accounts of victims and survivors, with the aim of memorializing the Jewish people who perished and the heroic voyages of the survivors, to convey their heritage to the generations to come.

“Yad Vashem” was authorized by the Holocaust Law to award the title of “Righteous Among the Nations” to non-Jewish people who saved the lives of Jewish people by hiding them from the Nazis, while risking their own lives. In their honor, a special area of the Yad Vashem Museum has been dedicated and named the “Avenue of the Righteous”. Trees have been planted along it and marked with the names and countries of the Righteous Gentiles, as a symbol of the renewal of life after the Holocaust.

The Yad Vashem Museum has several memorial sites and monuments, including the “Ohel Yizkor” Hall of Remembrance, Warsaw Ghetto Monument, Jewish Soldiers and Partisans Monument, Children’s Memorial, “Cattle Car” Deportees Memorial, and others. Special thought has been put into producing such creative and sensitive designs for the sites, particularly appropriate for the subject to which each site is dedicated.

Yad Vashem is of central importance in world conscience. Leaders from across the globe, heads of states, presidents, prime ministers and cabinet ministers, include a visit to Yad Vashem, as an integral part of their official visit to Israel. Millions of tourists from Israel and all over the world come to learn, remember and commit to passing on a beacon of hope to the next generations.

The eleventh numismatic bullion in the “Views of Jerusalem” Series is dedicated to Yad Vashem, as a symbol of remembrance, testimony and hope, of memories not to be forgotten, and of names not to be erased.

Design: Face – Aharon Shevo 

Common Reverse of the Series – Yaacov Enyedi

Minting: The Holy Land Mint

Description

Face: In the upper area is the Yad Vashem logo in Hebrew and English and across the center is the new museum structure, designed by the architect Moshe Safdie and opened in 2005, after a decade of construction. The building’s triangular shape with a glass skylight that permits daylight to enter, is reminiscent of how the Jewish people in Europe were enclosed, during the years that preceded the holocaust. The museum is built lengthwise, obliging visitors to walk the length of the halls, alongside the exhibits.

Above the museum is the concrete “Ohel Yizkor” Memorial Hall with the eternal memorial flame in its center. The building floor is engraved with the names of 22 concentration camps and killing pits. In 1968, the ashes of Jewish Holocaust victims murdered in the Treblinka concentration camp were buried beneath the “Ohel Yizkor” Memorial Hall.

In the lower part of the numismatic bullion are cypress and pine trees, representing the typical trees on the hilly landscape of Jerusalem and in Israel in general. Over the tree surface is the verse “I will give them, in My House and in My walls, a monument and a name that shall never be cut off (Isaiah 56:5)” in Hebrew and English.

Common Reverse: Lion of Jerusalem and prominent buildings of Jerusalem within the outline of a coat of arms, the Holy Land Mint trademark.
Inscriptions:  1oz. Fine Gold .9999 on the gold, 1oz. Fine Silver .999 on the silver, in English, "Jerusalem of Gold" in English and Hebrew and the mint year on the gold.