Introduction

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, was established in 1953 by an act of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset). Since its inception, Yad Vashem has been entrusted with documenting the history of the Jewish people during the Holocaust period, preserving the memory and story of each of the six million victims, and imparting the legacy of the Holocaust for generations to come through its archives, library, school, museums and recognition of the Righteous Among the Nations. A Holocaust Memorial was first proposed in September 1942, at a board meeting of the Jewish National Fund, by Mordecai Shenhavi, a member of Kibbutz Mishmar ha-Emek. Shenhavi even proposed the name "Yad Vashem" (lit., "a monument and a name"), taken from Isaiah 56:5. The Yad Vashem Law was eventually brought to the Knesset by Minister of Education Prof. Ben-Zion Dinur, one of the foremost historians of his day, and the first Chairman of Yad Vashem. The Law was ratified on August 19, 1953.

The Knesset Law stipulated that Yad Vashem be established in Jerusalem, and serve as a memorial to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, to the families that were destroyed, to the Jewish communities and their communal, cultural and religious institutions that were annihilated, to the courage and valor of the Jews - ghetto inmates, soldiers and underground activists, to the struggle of the masses of the House of Israel for their human dignity and Jewish culture, and to the Righteous among the Nations.