Forest of the Martyrs

Forest of the Martyrs (Hebrew: יער הקדושים, romanized: Ya'ar HaKdoshim) is a forest on the outskirts of West Jerusalem, Israel. It is on the western edge of the Jerusalem Forest near Beit Meir. It was planted as a memorial to those who died in the Holocaust and contains six million trees, symbolizing the six million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators in World War II.

Forest of the Martyrs

יער הקדושים
Scroll of Fire Monument in the Forest of the Martyrs
Location	Outskirts of West Jerusalem, Israel
Opening date	1951
Dedicated to	The victims of the Holocaust

History

Prior to the planting of the forest, the site was the location of the Palestinian villages of Dayr ‘Amr, Khirbat al-‘Umur, Kasla, Bayt Umm al-Mays, and ‘Aqqur. These villages were depopulated and destroyed by Zionist forces as part of the Nakba during the 1948 Palestine war.^[1] The JNF planted forests over most of the depopulated Palestinian villages on its sites in order to conceal their remains.^[2]

The planting ceremony of the Forest, 1952

The first trees for the forest were planted in 1951.^[3] The World B'nai Brith Jewish service organization financed a significant portion of the planting of the trees by the Jewish National Fund.^[4]

In addition to the trees planted in the forest to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, the forest contains several memorials:

• The Scroll of Fire, a large bronze sculpture by Nathan Rapoport, shaped like a double Torah scroll, one depicting scenes of destruction of the Jewish people in ancient and modern times, and the second depicting scenes of national rebirth.^[4]
• The Martyrs Cave, a natural cave that developed as a place of reflection and communion with the memory of Holocaust victims.^[4]
• The Anne Frank Memorial, a large cube depicting the annex in which the Frank family and others hid and a depiction of a chestnut tree that could be seen from the annex.^[4]

See also

• List of forests in Israel
• Yosef Weitz (1890–1972), first director of the Land and Afforestation Department of the Jewish National Fund