JERUSALEM (EJP)---Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem,  holds Tuesday a special memorial event to commemorate 70 years since deportation of Polish Jews in the “Generalgouvernment” to the Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps in “Operation Reinhard.”   

Minister of Education Gideon Sa’ar, Poland’s Secretary of State for National Heritage, Piotr Zuchowski, and Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev will offer remarks and Dr. Yitzchak Arad, Deputy Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council and author of Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps will offer the keynote address. 

Some 2 million Jews were murdered during the Operation (March 1942 - November 1943).   

During the course of the evening, the Israel Camerata Jerusalem directed by Avner Biron, and the new Israeli Vocal Ensemble directed by Yuval Ben - Ozer will present a special performance of Yossi Green’s Kaddish and Kol Nidre by Max Bruch. 

The musical program is conducted by Eli Yaffe and accompanied by Tenor Dudu Fisher.   During the event, video testimony of Treblinka survivors Eliahu Rosenberg and Abraham Bomba will be screened.

Some 2.3 million Jews lived in the area of the “Generalgouvernement” of Poland (the area of pre-war central Poland that included major population centers such as Warsaw, Krakow, Lublin, Radom and Lwow) in early 1942. 

In March 1942, the Germans instituted “Operation Reinhard” to deport the Jews of the area to their deaths at three extermination camps: Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka.  In the span of just a few months, nearly 2 million Jews were murdered during the operation.

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, was established in 1953. Located in Jerusalem, it is dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, documentation, research and education.