Planted along Highway 1 on the road to Jerusalem, the forest’s establishment began in 1951 with the support of B’nai B’rith. It contains six million trees—one for each life extinguished in the Holocaust – and includes sections commemorating destroyed communities, ghetto fighters, and more. Holocaust survivors, representatives of Jewish communities worldwide, descendants of lost communities, and new immigrants who settled in the surrounding villages all took part in planting the trees.

In 1952, the Children’s Forest- also known as the Forest of the Unknown Child – was established within the Forest of the Martyrs in memory of the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust. The forest was inaugurated by children, who also planted its first trees, as seen in the historical photograph. In 1953, the National Teachers’ Council for KKL-JNF decided to donate all birthday contributions collected in schools that year toward the planting of this forest, allowing children to take part in this meaningful act of remembrance.

When KKL-JNF planted this forest, we hoped it would be the last forest ever planted to commemorate a tragedy of this magnitude. Tragically, today, KKL-JNF is preparing to plant the Iron Swords Forest, a new memorial forest for the fallen of Israel’s current war.

Here we share rare historical photographs from the planting of these forests, some of which were only recently uncovered as part of an extensive digitization project in the KKL-JNF Photo Archive, revealing forgotten yet powerful moments of remembrance.