Yad Vashem, the leading organization for Holocaust documentation and research, launched two unique channels on the YouTube video sharing website ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day in the hopes of exposing English
and Arabic-speaking
audiences to materials they may not otherwise encounter.
The stations house several short 2-10 minute films, which include testimonies and personal stories of Holocaust victims and survivors as well as brief lectures and images from world leaders' visits to the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem.
The organization has said it intends to upload additional films in the upcoming weeks as well as launch more channels, in Hebrew and various other languages
Yad Vashem has increased its PR efforts to the internet as of late, and currently offers websites in Hebrew, English, Russian and Persian and as of January there is an Arabic-language site as well.
"We want to offer an alternative to the moderate majority in these countries and to provide them with reliable information on the Holocaust," said Yad Vashem Directorate Chairman, Avner Shalev, with the opening of the Arabic-language site.
On YouTube, as on other collaborative video sites, anti-Semitic content is rampant. In recent months the Polish embassy even requested site's managers remove such clips. Nonetheless, they are still available for viewing.
"Unfortunately, the internet network is full of wrong information, and deliberate lies. Yad Vashem's
channels will offer trustworthy information made available to anyone seeking to know more about this horrible chapter in the mankind's history," said Shalev.
"The meeting with the survivors by means of their testimonies and being able to observe some of the leading researchers in the field debate difficult questions will provide surfers with an additional means of relating to the Holocaust."
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