Yad Vashem: Arabic website to launch

Yad Vashem has announced that its Arabic Website will be launched January 24, in advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Its Farsi website was launched in 2007.

During 2007, some 7 million people from more than 200 countries visited Yad Vashem, some 56,000 from Muslim countries, including 32,500 from Arab countries.

The event will begin at 11 a.m. with a panel discussion, "The Holocaust and the Arab World," with academics, journalists and others. It will be in Hebrew with simultaneous translation into English and Arabic.

The site:

will include the historical narrative of the Holocaust, concepts from the Holocaust, academic articles, artifacts, maps, photos, archival documents and an online video testimony resource center all translated into Arabic, as well as a special multimedia presentation of the Auschwitz Album, with Arabic narration, stories of Righteous Among the Nations- including Muslims from Turkey and Albania- and the movie We Were There, which documents a joint visit of Arabs and Jews to Auschwitz. The site also contains information on the study of Arabic in Theresienstadt, and the Yad Vashem exhibit, "BESA: A Code of Honor: Muslim Albanians who Rescued Jews during the Holocaust."

Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said

“The Arabic speaking public is substantial, and providing an easily accessible and comprehensive website about the Holocaust in Arabic is crucial. In light of the Holocaust denial and antisemitism that we are witness to in Arabic countries, we want to offer an alternative source of information to moderates in these countries, to provide them with reliable information about the Shoah.”