Dani Dayan, chair of Yad Vashem, stated that he had a “warm and highly constructive” meeting with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Monday.
“His holiness underscored the importance he places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust and reaffirmed his commitment to advancing our shared goals,” the Holocaust memorial leader stated, of the meeting. “We also addressed the alarming rise in antisemitism worldwide and the urgent need for coordinated, decisive action to confront it.”
The two also talked about “potential collaborations between the Vatican and Yad Vashem in the fields of Holocaust commemoration, documentation and education, particularly in addressing Holocaust distortion and rising antisemitism,” per the Israeli readout.
“Dayan emphasized the importance of documentation from the Vatican archives for advancing Holocaust research and expanding knowledge about Jews who perished or survived,” and at the end of the meeting, he invited the pope to visit Yad Vashem, according to the readout.
Dayan also gave the pope a copy of Carol Deutsch’s painting “Where Art Thou?”
The artist was killed in the Holocaust. “The work is part of a series of 99 pieces depicting stories and figures from the Bible, created by Deutsch in 1941 in Antwerp for his young daughter,” Yad Vashem said. “This specific piece was chosen as a tribute to Pope Francis, who in his 2014 speech at Yad Vashem quoted the biblical passage that inspired the title of the artwork. A passage from that speech is inscribed on the gift.”
