Israel's Holocaust memorial opens a conservation facility to store artifacts, photos and more

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem on Monday that will preserve, restore and store its more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage.

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, serves as both a museum and a research institution. It welcomes nearly a million visitors each year, leads the country’s annual Holocaust memorial day and hosts nearly all foreign dignitaries visiting Israel.

“Before we opened this building, it was very difficult to exhibit our treasures that were kept in our vaults. They were kind of secret,” said Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan. "Now there’s a state-of-the-art installation (that) will help us to exhibit them.”

The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, located at the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, will also provide organization and storage for the museum’s 225 million pages of documents and half a million photographs.

Dayan said the materials will now be kept in a facility that preserves them in optimal temperatures and conditions.

“Yad Vashem has the largest collections in the world of materials related to the Holocaust," Dayan said. “We will make sure that these treasures are kept for eternity."

The new facility includes advanced, high-tech labs for conservation, enabling experts to revisit some of the museum’s trickier items, such as a film canister that a family who fled Austria in 1939 brought with them. It was donated to the museum but arrived in an advanced state of decay.

“The film arrived in the worst state it could. It smelled really bad,” said Reut Ilan-Shafik, a photography conservator at Yad Vashem. Over the years, the film had congealed into a solid piece of plastic, making it impossible to be scanned.

Using organic solvents, conservators were able to restore some of the film’s flexibility, allowing them to carefully unravel pieces of it. Using a microscope, Ilan-Shafik was able to see a few frames in their entirety, including one showing a couple kissing on a bench in a park and other snapshots of Europe before World War II.

“It is unbelievable to know that the images of the film that we otherwise thought lost to time” have been recovered, said Orit Feldberg, granddaughter of Hans and Klara Lebel, the couple featured in the film reel.

Feldberg’s mother donated the film canister, one of the few things the Lebels were able to take with them when they fled Austria.

“These photographs not only tell their unique story but also keep their memory vibrantly alive,” Feldberg said.

Conservation of items from the Holocaust is an expensive, painstaking process that has taken on greater importance as the number of survivors dwindles.

Last month, the Auschwitz Memorial announced it had finished a half-million-dollar project to conserve 3,000 of the 8,000 pairs of children’s shoes that are on display at the Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

Martin and Ilana Moshav on the podium at the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks at the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

A worker peruses the documents archive at The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Sarah Reichert restores a painting in a conservation lab during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Exterior of the The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center on the he Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

A striped uniform worn by a concentration camp prisoner is displayed in a textiles conservation lab during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Paintings are displayed in a climate-controlled archive room during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Yellow badges and a piece of luggage are displayed during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

A teddy bear is displayed in a textiles conservation lab during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

HONG KONG (AP) — European markets opened higher on Friday while Asian shares ended mixed after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates again to ease pressure on the U.S. economy.

Germany’s DAX slipped 0.1% to 19,362,32. In Paris, the CAC 40 edged 0.1% lower to 7,417.13. Britain’s FTSE 100 also fell 0.1%, to 8,132.48.

The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were virtually unchanged.

Markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai fell as investors awaited much-anticipated steps by Beijing to rev up the slowing Chinese economy following a meeting of the legislature’s Standing Committee.

“If Beijing delivers, we might see a powerful rally ripple through the region as investors gear up for a fresh surge in market momentum,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

Officials announced a 6 trillion yuan ($839 billion), three-year plan to help local governments refinance their many trillions of debt that has ballooned during the COVID-19 pandemic and a collapse of the property market.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng erased early gains, falling 1.1% to 20,728.19. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.5% to 3,452.30.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index gained 0.3% to 39,500.37.

Shares in Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Corp. plummeted 6% on Friday after the company on Thursday announced that it will dismiss 9,000 workers and slash its global production capacity by 20% due to falling sales and rising costs and inventory.

In South Korea, the Kospi shed 0.1% to 2,561.15, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.8% to 8,295.10.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 climbed 0.7%, adding to its surge from the day before following Donald Trump’s presidential victory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was virtually unchanged, while the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.5%.

The Fed’s announcement that it was easing its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point caused few ripples in the market because even the precise size of it was so well anticipated by investors.

The central bank began easing rates in September and indicated more cuts were likely to come, as it focuses more on keeping the job market humming after helping get inflation nearly down to its 2% target. What’s less certain in the minds of investors now is how much Trump’s victory may upset the Fed’s plans.

Trump is pushing for tariffs and other policies that economists say could drive inflation higher, along with the economy’s growth. Traders have already begun paring forecasts for how many cuts to rates the Fed will deliver next year because of that. While lower rates can boost the economy, they can also give inflation more fuel.

For now, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said, nothing is changing. “In the near term, the election will have no effects” on interest-rate policy, he said.

At this point, Powell said it’s still not clear what the policies will be after Trump returns to the White House.

“We don’t guess, we don’t speculate and we don’t assume,” he said.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond eased to 4.33% from 4.44% late Wednesday.

A report on Thursday showed slightly more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits, though the number remains relatively low. A separate report suggested U.S. workers improved their productivity during the summer, which can help keep a lid on inflation, but not by quite as much as economists expected.

In other dealings early Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 89 cents to $71.47 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 88 cents to $74.75 per barrel.

The dollar fell to 152.61 Japanese yen from 152.94 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0770 from $1.0804.

People stand in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Tokyo Stock Price index at a securities firm Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)