Ghetto Fighters' House, Holocaust museum in Lohamei HaGeta'ot, Israel

The Ghetto Fighters' House, named for poet Itzhak Katzenelson, stands in Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta'ot in the Western Galilee. Its main building holds three floors of exhibitions and two basement floors for archival storage; a study center honors Yitzhak Zuckerman and Zivia Lubetkin, and Yad LaYeled, designed by architect Ram Karmi, opened in 1996.

The idea for the institution came from Yitzhak "Antek" Zuckerman in Poland in 1946, and the kibbutz founders held their first public Holocaust memorial assembly in April 1949, on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. A permanent exhibition opened in April 1951, making it the world's first Holocaust museum. The museum is named after poet Itzhak Katzenelson, murdered at Auschwitz, whose family donated land in Tel Aviv for the site.

The museum is named for Itzhak Katzenelson, a poet and educator who ran underground schools in the Warsaw Ghetto and wrote "The Song of the Murdered Jewish People" in the Vittel camp before his death at Auschwitz. His family donated land in Tel Aviv to help establish the museum. The founding kibbutz held its first Holocaust memorial assembly in April 1949, on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a tradition that continues.

The museum sits between Acre and Nahariya on the northwestern coast and is easily reached by car. Visitors should allow time to move through multiple floors and should be aware that the content is emotionally challenging.

The Yad LaYeled children's museum opened in 1996, designed by architect Ram Karmi with displays by Uri Abramson. Its archive holds a 2006 find: a 15-page Polish typescript titled "Mengele's Dog", the story of Otto, a Hungarian-Polish Jewish boy at Auschwitz forced by Josef Mengele to act like a dog.