Israel Philatelic Service Issues Two Commemorative Stamps in Honor of Yad Vashem’s Jubilee Year

at an inaugural ceremony held in the office of the Speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin.

Left to right: Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate,  Reuven Rivlin, Speaker of the Knesset, Prof. Szewach Weiss, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council and Dov Shilansky, member of the Yad Vashem Directorate.

The Teddy-Bear Stamp

This stamp depicts a teddy bear wearing the yellow star, with a Page of Testimony in the background.  Pages of Testimony, collected by Yad Vashem, commemorate the names and preserve the memory of Holocaust victims.  The inspiration for the teddy bear motif was provided by the “No Child’s Play” exhibition in the Art Museum at Yad Vashem.  Amongst the toys on display is a teddy bear that accompanied a young girl during the dark years of the Holocaust as she and her family fled from Transylvania to Siberia.

The Names Stamp

Holocaust and rebirth are intertwined in the different elements portrayed in this stamp:  a list of Jewish forced laborers in the “Hassag” factory in the Polish city of Skarzysko Kamienna (Yad Vashem Archives); most of them were shot, and those who managed to survive were added to a transport that was sent to Treblinka. The railway lines that served to transport the Jews to the death camps become the blue stripes of the Israeli flag, and the yellow star of the Holocaust period becomes the blue Star of David.

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Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority