Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Museum

Our Goal

Join us as we create a new home for the Holocaust and Heroism Museum to share the personal stories of Holocaust survivors with state of the art technology and compelling authentic artifacts. Donate now to ensure the continued educational impact of Irena and Kuba’s life work.

Our Project

Holocaust survivors Irena Wodislavsky and her late husband, Yaakov (Kuba), overcame limited means and personal hardship to convert their home into the Ariel Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Museum. Their mission: to ensure that the voices of those who perished in the Holocaust will forever resonate.

It’s time to look to the future and create a new home for the Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Museum that will maintain and develop their legacy for generations to come.

One-of-a-Kind

• The Museum is the only facility of its sort in Samaria and one of a kind in Israel – developing a different way of educating and engaging the visitors – with an emphasis on personal stories of victims and survivors.
• Sculpture Gallery – Featuring emotive bronze sculptures by Shmuel Vilenberg, a survivor of Treblinka, depicting memories of his travails and nightmares in the death camp.
• Photo Gallery – Featuring rare photographs that track the chronological events of the Holocaust era, from the invasion of Poland, to deportation, to life and death in the ghettos, to the death camps, to the selection process, and the mass murder.
• Personal Belongings Gallery – Featuring rare items, including a prisoner’s jacket from Auschwitz; a collection of yellow Jude stars from different countries; various arm bands and badges worn by Jews and German officials; a Torah scroll singed by flames; rare stamps depicting Nazi iconography, among many other original artifacts.
• Letters and Postcards Gallery – Featuring a rare and unique collection of over 350 postcards and letters that were mailed from the work camps and ghettos by both Jews and Gentiles.

Regional Resource for Holocaust Education

• Ariel is the modern-day capital of the Samaria region.
• Facilities developed here not only service Ariel residents, students of all ages, and international visitors but also expands to the region’s Israeli communities as well.
• The Museum has become the accessible site of choice for Holocaust programming in the area.
• With a Holocaust resource in the region and part of the community, Holocaust education goes beyond an annual visit and becomes a year round process.

State of the Art Technology

The Shoah Foundation has developed Dimensions in Testimony (DiT),  a collection of interactive biographies that enable people to have conversations with pre-recorded video images of Holocaust survivors. These testimonies become interactive exhibits in which people can ask questions of the taped survivors and receive answers, as if in a regular conversation.

A prospective partnership with the Shoah Foundation is underway to bring this collaborative experience to Ariel . This type of exhibit is perfectly in line with the existing Museum as it adds value to the conversation and gives Irena a chance to share her personal experience, complete with emotions, with the visitor.