The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and Yad Vashem, the world’s only two national Holocaust institutions, last month agreed to their first official exchange of materials and services.
The agreement comes less than a year after the council’s agreement with the Polish government archives to exchange materials. Sam Eskenazi, council spokesman, said negotiations are under way to sign agreements with other countries, but he would not disclose any names.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to open here in 1990 near the Washington Monument, with preliminary construction beginning as early as the first weeks of this month, Eskenazi said.
Under the Feb. 15 agreement, which has to be ratified by the boards of both parties, the two institutions will exchange exhibits and consider donating duplicate materials to each other. In addition, they agreed to co-publish books in English on the Holocaust and provide assistance to each other’s scholars and researchers.
Yad Vashem also has agreed to participate in the council’s automated inventory of Holocaust-related documents worldwide.
William Lowenberg, vice chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial, said the agreement will lead to an “ever greater illumination of the truth of the Holocaust as the most evil event in human history.”
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