Yad Vashem Chair: Pope is friend and ally in fight against anti-Semitism

image Vatican Media

Source: Vatican News, Yad Vashem

On Thursday, Pope Francis received in audience Dani Dayan, Chair of Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem and reiterates his commitment to help fight anti-Semitism.

Speaking to Vatican Radio after the meeting Mr Dayan described the Pope as "a friend and an ally in the mission to defeat anti-Semitism."

Noting that he is the first Yad Vashem chairman to be received in a private audience with the Pope, Dayan revealed that the two men share Buenos Aires as their birthplace and were happy to be able to converse in their native Spanish.

Three Popes have now visited Yad Vashem on Jerusalem's Mount of Remembrance. Pope Francis was there during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2014. In his speech at Yad Vashem Pope Francis implored the Lord to "grant us the grace to be ashamed of what men have done," and cried out "Never again, Lord, never again!"

During Thursday's meeting Pope Francis and Dani Dayan discussed collaborative activities between Yad Vashem and the Vatican in Holocaust remembrance, education and documentation, and efforts to fight antisemitism and racism worldwide.

Yad Vashem Chairman Dayan stated: "During this historic meeting today with His Holiness Pope Francis I felt the weight of responsibility as someone who represents not only himself and not only the present, but rather the entire Jewish people throughout its history. This is why I proposed to the Pope all of Yad Vashem's expertise and influence, our abilities, materials and scholarship in order to address these issues related to the Holocaust and the Church in particular, and on the worldwide stage in general."

Mr Dayan expressed his gratitude to the Pope for his decision to open the WWII-era Vatican Archives, and to address questions regarding the Church during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem archivists are currently gathering information from these collections, with the goal of bringing them to the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem where they can be studied and hopefully shed light on the experiences and fate of many Holocaust victims.

Dayan noted: "The Pope expressed great emotion when discussing the Holocaust. He said that the opening of the Vatican Archives related to World War II is an issue of justice, and that the Church is not afraid of history. In addition to this, the Pope said that like in every group, there were those individuals in the Church who acted correctly and those who did not. This was an important statement from His Holiness Pope Francis."

Following the discussion, Dayan presented Pope Francis with a replica of a synagogue painting depicting The Ten Commandments. The original painting, created by I Eisikowicz, was an adornment on a 20th-century Torah ark in Cernăuți, Romania (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), and is all that remains from this once-thriving centre of Jewish life before it was destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The plaque was kept in dilapidated and abandoned synagogues in Romania until it was acquired by Yad Vashem during an operation in the 1990s to collect and rescue religious objects and relics remaining in Romania after the war. This artifact is one of dozens of religious artifacts on display in the Yad Vashem Synagogue.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Dani Dayan extended an invitation to the Pope to once again visit the State of Israel and Yad Vashem. Pope Francis reassured Dayan that Yad Vashem would always find a friend in the Vatican. As an expression of this friendship, he presented Dayan with a bronze statue of an olive branch, as a sign of peace and hope.

LINK

Yad Vashem - www.yadvashem.org/