By Larry Luxner
JERUSALEM — A guitar played by Jewish teenager Nina Simon of Skopje, Yugoslavia. A shortwave radio that once belonged to Raphael Ahav of Lyon, France. An embroidered prayer shawl, or tallit, used by 7-year-old Yosef Valdman of Borsczców, Poland.
These everyday artifacts are among 33 displayed in glass cubicles at the entrance to “Living Memory” — a new exhibit at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
What these items all have in common is that none of their owners lived to see the end of World War II — all were victims of the Nazi horror that took six million Jewish lives. The exhibit explores how memory is formed and passed on, through personal objects that tell extraordinary — and at times, unbelievable — stories, along with rare Holocaust-era documentation and compelling artwork.
“These personal items serve as bridges between past and present, as evidence of what happened,” said Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg, chief art curator at Yad Vashem, which is located on Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem. “Some of them deal with religion, others with daily life. We ask ourselves the question, what is memory? And how will we transmit this memory when the direct witnesses to the Holocaust will no longer be among us?”
Moreh-Rosenberg added: “All of us know Holocaust survivors, but the next generation will not. Our challenge is to make these memories more present and tangible.”
That challenge has taken on added urgency, given that roughly only 200,000 Holocaust survivors remain alive worldwide today. Their average age is 87, according to the Claims Conference.
The “Living Memory” exhibit is designed to offer museum-goers a firsthand encounter with a Jewish world that no longer exists. The objects on display range in size from a tiny pocket watch used by Yaakov Ostfeld of the Romanian town of Vatra Dornei to the full-sized wardrobe, salvaged from a house in Poland, in which Jewish teenager Genia Sznajder hid in 1941, the wooden door punctured by a German soldier’s bayonet.
“There Must Be Order” from the “Striped Coat” series by Israeli artist Shulamit Levin, on display at Yad Vashem’s “Living Memory” exhibit. (Larry Luxner)
In total, more than 400 rarely seen artifacts and artworks form the exhibit. Partially funded by the Austrian government, “Living Memory” opened Oct. 30, 2025 in a ceremony that featured a performance by 104-year-old Auschwitz survivor and conductor László Roth.
“The idea for this exhibit came after we opened a new repository for all our collections in July 2024. It occurred to me that we should make these collections accessible to the public,” Moreh-Rosenberg said. “I thought it was important to show visitors what is actually being preserved.”
The exhibit — which includes items connected with survivors as well as victims — consists of three sections comprising three layers of memory.
“The first stage is during the Holocaust itself, when Jews made every attempt possible to preserve memory, so that something would be left. The second stage is after the Holocaust, when survivors went back to their homes and communities, trying to find traces of life and collect documents, names and information,” she said.
“The third stage is memory speaking through symbols,” Moreh-Rosenberg said as she guided visitors through a gallery of Holocaust-themed art. “This is collective memory.”
Moreh-Rosenberg, originally from France, has been working at Yad Vashem for 20 years. She studied art history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and museum studies at Tel Aviv University.
“We’ve made a point of showing original, authentic pieces,” she said.
One of the most unusual objects on display is the trunk of a hollowed-out tree that saved the life of Jakob Silberstein, a Polish Jew who escaped from a Nazi death march in Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. He eventually found refuge at the home of a Czech woman, Jana Sudova.
“One day, he saw a rabbit running and entering the tree, so he understood that the tree was hollow,” Moreh-Rosenberg explained. “He dug into the tree, and you can see here the hole he made. He knew he had a hiding place in case the Germans would come looking for Jews.”
Survivor testimony videos form part of the “Living Memory” exhibit at Yad Vashem. (Courtesy)
That is exactly where he fled when the Gestapo made a final sweep of the area towards the end of the war. Silberstein hid for nine hours; he survived and eventually settled in Israel. Sixty years later, in 2005, he returned to the Czech Republic, tracked down the tree and eventually donated it to Yad Vashem.
Other remarkable artifacts include a package of yellow stars intended for distribution to French Jews, and a Hanukkah menorah that was concealed under the floor of a synagogue-turned-church in the Dutch town of Alphen aan den Rijn. The menorah was discovered in 1980, wrapped in newspapers from the year 1941.
Also on display is a silver-threaded waistcoat made by Sol Levi, who lived in the Greek port of Thessaloniki. Sol spent four years knitting it but never wore it. In 1943, the entire family was deported to Auschwitz; only her son Marcel survived.
“There is one artifact that especially moved me — a notebook that belonged to Josima Feldschuh, a child prodigy pianist and composer who gave concerts in the Warsaw Ghetto,” Moreh-Rosenberg said. “She played Chopin, Mozart and Schubert. We have her notebook in which she composed music. She and her parents found a hiding place, but at the age of 13 she died of disease, and so did her mother. Only her father survived.”
The last section of the exhibition showcases the work being done at Yad Vashem’s new Shapell Family Collections Center. In this space, visitors get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the cataloging and research that takes place daily so that Holocaust memory can be preserved for future generations.
At the exhibit’s conclusion, a prominent quote from the late Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize-winning writer Elie Wiesel sums up its mission: “We have to be the messengers’ messengers.”
This article is sponsored by and produced in collaboration with Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. This story was produced by JTA’s native content team.
