Yad Vashem - Valley of Destroyed Communities

The Valley of the Destroyed Communities is the latest addition (1993) to the Yad Vashem complex, Israel's central memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust of World War II. It consists of a maze of courtyards (each representing a country or geographical region), on whose walls are inscribed the names of cities and towns where Jewish communities flourished before the advent of the Nazi regime in Germany. Viewed from the air, the structure approximates the shape of the map of Europe. The national institution for research and documentation of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem includes a museum, the Hall of the Names, and the Avenue of Righteous Gentiles. It is dedicated to perpetuating the memory of the Jews who perished in the Nazi Holocaust (1939-1945). [Archaeology] [Images of selected sites in Jerusalem]