Chamber of the Holocaust

The site was founded in 1948 by the Ministry of Religion and its Director-General, Rabbi Dr. Samuel Zangvil Kahane, whose purview included Mount Zion. That same year, Kahane oversaw the on-site burial of ashes of victims from the Oranienburg concentration camp together with desecrated Torah scrolls recovered from Nazi Europe.

In contrast to Yad Vashem, the government's official Holocaust memorial museum established in 1953 on Mount Herzl, a new site symbolizing rebirth after destruction, the Chief Rabbinate chose Mount Zion as the site for the Chamber of the Holocaust because of its proximity to David's Tomb, which symbolically connotes ancient Jewish history and the promise of messianic redemption (through the Messiah, son of David).

Scholars have noted that the somber ambience of the museum, whose dank, cave-like rooms are illuminated by candlelight, is meant to portray the Holocaust as a continuation of the "death and destruction" that plagued Jewish communities throughout history.