The building: Getto Fighters' House
Location: Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetaot
Building Year: 1949
Architect: Samuel Bickels
Structural Engineers: Hakibbutz Hameuhad Planning Department
The Holocaust Museum was established on Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetaot in 1949, with the foundation of the kibbutz.
The kibbutz members, who were Holocaust survivors, had resolved during the war to create a museum that would
serve as a memorial and a site of commemoration.
The museum was built in order to preserve the history of the Holocaust as a continual present;
to underscore the connection between personal stories and the national story;
to heal the schism between the country’s pioneering spirit and the memory of the Holocaust;
to provide a framework for the personal testimonies of the survivors and of those who
fought in ghetto uprisings; and to uphold the heritage of the ghetto uprising.
The building borders on a large ceremonial plaza that overlooks an ancient Roman
aqueduct and a large amphitheater.
The museum design was meant to underscore the relationship between personal
testimonies and the collective past. Its interior spaces allow for an experience of individual
and collective communion, which is translated into the manner in which light enters the building.
The building’s public spaces are penetrated by different kinds of natural light;
in the exhibition spaces, shafts that let in soft light allow for withdrawal into a
private space of remembrance.
