(JTA) – The Yad Vashem Holocaust museum said in a statement that the Holocaust “was the unprecedented genocide of six million Jews.” The Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem issued a statement Tuesday discussing several of the events it held in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Yad Vashem representatives stressed to all that the Holocaust was the unprecedented genocide of six million Jews, perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, motivated by a radically racist, anti-Semitic ideology, which sought the annihilation of the Jewish people, its culture and its heritage. The Nazis’ barbaric intent and policy to wipe out an entire people violated the fundamental tenets of human morality, thus making the Holocaust a distinct event of eternal universal significance,” the statement said.

It added: “Yad Vashem emphasizes the imperative to understand the Holocaust in a historically accurate manner, in order to ensure that it remains a perpetually relevant component of human consciousness and discourse throughout the world.” The statements come in the wake of a controversy over the White House’s Holocaust commemoration statement issued on Friday, which failed to mention Jews.