On 23-24 April 2012 Dr. Łukasz Kamiński, President of IPN and Dr. Krzysztof Persak, Director of the President’s Office visited Israel.
The purpose of the visit was to summarise the previous cooperation of the Institute of National Remembrance and Yad Vashem and discuss the possibility of its expansion, especially in the area of scientific research and education.
On 23 April IPN representatives met with His Excellency Jacek Chodorowski, Polish Ambassador to Israel, who also took part the meeting with Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate. It was attended by a wide circle of Avner Shalev’ s associates. Both parties have pledged to expand their cooperation and resolve any difficulties. At the end of the meeting, Dr. Łukasz Kamiński handed Mr. Avner Shalev with digital copies of documents of the Supreme National Tribunal, held in the archives of the IPN. Seven processes of key German war criminals were conducted before the Supreme National Tribunal in the years 1946-1948.
During a meeting with Dr. Havi Dreifuss-Ben Sasson, the head of Polish Centre in the Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research, concepts for collaboration of historians from the Center and IPN were discussed.
IPN delegation also got acquainted with the work of Yad Vashem’s archive of and met with its director, dr. Haim Gertner, and his colleagues, including Masha Yonin, who is in charge of the acquisitions department. The previous cooperation regarding the exchange of copies of archival material was discussed as well as ways of its intensification.
Dr. Kamiński and Dr. Persak also visited Yad Vashem’s permanent exhibition, the Children's Memorial and The Avenue of the Righteous and the Valley of the Communities.
On 24 April IPN representatives visited the Yad Vashem’s Visual Center and met with Liat Benhabib, its Director. The Center stores and makes available footage on Holocaust (documentary films, witness accounts, feature films). Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg, the curator of art collections at the Yad Vashem Museum presented to Dr. Kamiński and Dr. Persak exhibition of portraits created in ghettos and camps.
Alexander Avraham, head of the Hall of Names and the database of names of the Holocaust victims presented the methodology for working on creating a computerized database of the Shoah victims. The project is of great importance also for Poland, due to the project implemented since 2006 "Human Losses and Victims of Repression under the German Occupation”.
The following meeting was devoted to Yad Vashem’s educational activities. It was attended by Dorit Novak (director of the International School for Holocaust Studies), Shulamit Imber (director of education) and Richelle Budd Caplan (head of the School’s European Department). IPN’s educational activities met with great interest of the attendees. Dorit Novak invited IPN educators to attend the VIII International Conference on Teaching the Holocaust to showcase the educational achievements of the Institute.
The problem of cooperation in the field of research was the main topic of the meeting with Dr. Bella Gutterman, director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research. The meeting was also attended by Prof. Dan Michman. It has been agreed that the cooperation will include joint publications and translations of important papers, seminars and conferences. The representatives of Yad Vashem presented the scholarship programs aimed at researchers from abroad, encouraging Polish historians to participate in them.
At the end of the visit the President of the IPN laid wreaths at the Hall of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust at Yad Vashem and at the Monument in Memory of Jewish Fighters in the Armies of Poland, at the army cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
Dr. Łukasz Kamiński and Dr. Krzysztof Persak also visited prof. Israel Gutman, nestor of the research into the extermination of Polish Jews.
Photographs: Witold Medykowski