Fischer to Attend Yad Vashem Opening

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer will be among the international dignitaries at the opening of the Yad Vashem memorial musuem in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Hundreds of foreign heads of state, officials and guests are due to attend the unveiling of the new Holocaust museum, a memorial to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazi regime during World War II. The new museum is four times bigger than the original built 30 years ago to keep alive the tragedy of the past. The event has been described as the biggest international occasion in Israel since the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist in 1995. Yad Vashem -- the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority -- was set up in 1953, five years after the creation of the state of Israel, as a reminder of the horrors that European Jews endured at the hand of Adolf Hilter.