Yad Vashem
Photo: Reuters
Iraq learns from Yad Vashem
Members of Iraqi team perpetuating memory of Saddam Hussein's crimes secretly visit Yad Vashem
Members of an Iraqi organization planning to perpetuate the memory of thousands of Saddam Hussein's victims secretly visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington and the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem last year, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily revealed Tuesday.
The report noted that a special team of Iraqi exiles has for the past year been recording testimonies of survivors who managed to escape Saddam's atrocities. One of the most prominent testimonies among the hundreds recorded for the planned Iraqi memorial museum, is the one by Avrahan Moshli from Baghdad, an elderly businessman who was apprehended, tortured and who managed to escape and flee to Europe.
It also became known that the 30 members of the Iraqi memorial team met with Jewish film director Steven Spielberg, who is also documenting Holocaust survivors' testimonies.
During their visit to Israel about a year ago, a member of the Iraqi team met with families of former Iraqis residing in Israel.
The head of the Iraqi memorial team, Dr Kenan Makiya who arrived in Israel escorted by two other persons, is lecturer at the Harvard University and he lives in Baghdad and the US.
"It is hard for me to make a comparison between the stories of the Iraqi victims and the Holocaust of Jews in Europe," Makiya said.
"Yet, there are common denominators," he added, "Saddam treated some of his people in the same way Hitler treated the Jews. In both cases it was a tragedy, and in both cases there were innocent victims."
