From Our Artifacts Collection: Hanukkah Menorahs

In celebration of Hanukkah this week, highlighted below are a few exceptional Hanukkah menorahs from Yad Vashem's Artifacts Collection. The creative and original menorahs are remnants of the cultural and religious life of Jewish communities that attempted to maintain Jewish tradition during the Holocaust.

Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection, Donated by the Remonstrant Church, Netherland.

This nineteenth century Hanukkah menorah was found, wrapped in newspapers dated 1941, under the floor of the former synagogue in Alphen aan den Rijn, Holland during renovations carried out in the 1980s. The Jewish community of Alphen aan den Rijn was destroyed during the Holocaust. The synagogue, in which the menorah once stood, became a church. 

Yad Vashem artifacts Collection, Donated by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania, Bucharest.

This brass Hanukkah menorah was made from available materials by Jews who were deported from Romania to the area of Transnistria during the Holocaust, where they were abandoned by authorities. 

  

Yad Vashem Artifacts collection, Gift of Bella Bialik, Tel Aviv

This compact silver Hanukkah menorah folds up into the form of a prayer book. It was presented to Mordecai Rumkowski, head of the Judenrat in the Lodz Ghetto by Ziso Eybeshitz who ran the paper factory in the Ghetto. The menorah was found in the ruins of Rumkowski's home in the Ghetto.

View more photos from Hanukkah before, during and after the Holocaust on Yad Vashem's online Exhibition: "Hanukkah- The Festival of Lights."