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(JNS) The world’s first Holocaust museum, the Ghetto Fighters’ House in Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot, reopened its doors to visitors this month following the war with Hezbollah in nearby Lebanon, highlighting its role as a beacon of resilience in northern Israel.
The kibbutz, and the museum, was founded by Holocaust survivors, including some who fought in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Nestled on the coastal highway north of Haifa between Acre and Nahariya, it is experiencing a rebirth after a year of rocket attacks from Lebanon. During peaceful times, the area six miles from the international border is known for its pastoral landscape and rolling hills. The war forced the kibbutz’s gates to remain shut to the public, but it remained virtually unscathed save some damage to its roof.
Israel’s main Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, established in 1953, is visited by foreign officials on state visits. However, the museum at “the House,” as kibbutz residents refer to it, focuses more on rebirth and renewal.
“As the world’s first Holocaust museum, and the largest Holocaust institution in the north of Israel, our significance has only deepened in light of the events since October 7, [2023],” said the Ghetto Fighters’ House director Yigal Cohen.
These events “underscore the critical need to draw inspiration from the resilience of Holocaust survivors—those who miraculously rose, like a phoenix, from the ashes,” he said.
During the recent war, the museum opened its doors to hundreds of combat soldiers based on the northern border with Lebanon, provided a place to stay for a group of Thai farm workers who had been employed in southern Israel, and hosted pre-military educational programs for high school students.
And in a symbolic act of defiance, the museum hosted its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day closing ceremony at its outdoor amphitheater, maintaining a tradition observed from its first year of operation. Around 5,500 visitors attended—close to the 6,000 who take part in a normal year—and were guarded by a nearby newly installed Iron Dome missile defense system.
Chilling and inspiring
Among the most notable items in the Ghetto Fighters’ House exhibits is the booth in which the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann sat during his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. It was gifted to the museum by the Israeli police after the lead prosecutor in the case, Gideon Hausner, used testimony of survivors from the kibbutz to help make his case.
“In the evening before the trial I visited ‘the House’ to absorb its atmosphere, to be with the Jewish victims, and the Jewish calamity, while [Eichmann] will be on trial for what I have seen here,” Hausner wrote on March 17, 1961.
A new exhibition of artwork juxtaposes pictures of Jewish children from the Vilna Ghetto with images of children from Kibbutz Bee’eri, which was hit hard during the Oct. 7 massacre near Gaza.
“This is the first museum in the world which connects between the Holocaust, rebirth and the kibbutz,” Israeli entrepreneur and philanthropist Raya Strauss said.
A light rescued from darkness
The museum operates on an annual budget of less than $4 million, most of which comes from private donors.
“After a challenging period of operating a museum close to Israel’s northern border, while facing relentless rocket fire and countless sirens, we look back on a year that required resilience, persistence and solidarity and look forward to a new beginning, welcoming anew visitors in our galleries,” said Ronit Lusky, the Ghetto Fighters’ House director of development and partnerships.
About 200,000 Holocaust survivors live around the world, half of them in Israel.
“This is a museum which grew from the bottom [up], from Holocaust survivors [themselves],” said Professor Hanna Yablonka, the chief historian of the Ghetto Fighters’ House. “Light doesn’t come from darkness, rather it needs to be rescued from the darkness.”
