I FOCUS Nathan Rappaport's "Uprising" at Yad Vashem captures the spirit of the last days of the Warsaw Ghetto, but research and documentation regarding the Warsaw Ghetto and other aspects of the Holocaust are being en- dangered by a financial crisis. Yad Vashem Is In Trouble y ARYEH DEAN COHEN Special to The Jewish News The world's foremost institution for Holocaust commemoration and research, deep in debt for routine maintenance and utility bills, has been forced to shut down some of its most vital activities. 76 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1988 ad Vashem, the fore- most institution in the world for Holocaust commemoration and re- search, came close to shutting down recently, narrowly averting closure through last- minute Knesset action. As a result of its crippling financial crisis, Yad Vashem recently stopped taking testi- mony of survivors, and has severely curtailed its pursuit of vital documents related to the Holocaust. Visitors to Yad Vashem may not notice its problems. Building is continuing on projects funded by donors, in- cluding a new third floor for Yad Vashem offices. But the institution's led- gers tell another story; one of debts to security and utility companies and other overdue maintenance bills. Faced with this sorry situa- tion, Yad Vashem Chairman Dr. Yitzhak Arad has threat- ened to close Yad Vashem. With no money for salaries or maintenance, Arad was forced to act despite Yad Vashem's recognized status as a national institution whose creation and activities are firmly rooted in Israeli law. The 1953 Martyrs' and Heroes' Commemoration (Yad Vashem) Law estab- lished a "Remembrance Au- thority" in Jerusalem "to gather in to the homeland material regarding all those members of the Jewish People who laid down their lives, who fought and rebelled against the Nazi enemy and his col- laborators, and to perpetuate their memory and that of the communities, organizations and institutions which were destroyed because they were Jewish." The law also calls on Yad Vashem to "collect, examine and publish all testimony of the disaster and heroism, and to bring home its lesson to the people." Current financial conditions make those tasks impossible for Yad Vashem to carry out. The Yad Vashem archives are crumbling. Documents are literally falling to pieces, with no funds to repair or treat them. Displays are in sad need of renovation. Edu- cational projects are on hold. Yad Vashem, created to help the world remember, has been forgotten and is languishing in a state of neglect. Several factors merged to bring on this crisis: Israel's chronic cash shortage, inter- ministerial wrangling and Arad's reluctance to go public with the problem before ex- hausting other available means. The harsh reality is that Israel's financial pie is get- ting smaller despite improve- ments in the inflation rate. Israel's $48 billion national budget is quickly halved to $24 billion after deducting payment of the nation's debts. As a result, money for cultural institutions like Yad Vashem is scarcer. Funded by the Education Ministry Yad Vashem's 1987- 88 budget was about $1.3 million, a figure set by the Education Ministry several years ago, and has not been increased for some time. But it has been significantly eroded by inflation. Meanwhile, its tasks have grown monumentally. This year alone, one million vis- itors came to Yad Vashem, including many foreign digni- taries. There are endless requests for educational proj- ects, and the demands of research to confront those who would deny the Holo-