Last update - 00:00 23/03/2007
Hirchson's NGO received free services from Yad Vashem
By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent
The non-profit groups which organize the March of Remembrance and Hope, an educational program founded by Finance Minister Abraham Hirchson, received services without pay amounting to hundreds of thousands of shekels from Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
Several months after the services were provided for the 2005 march, the Tourism Ministry - then headed by Hirchson - requested the transfer of NIS 1.5 million to Yad Vashem. The money was transferred in December 2006, after Hirchson had already left the ministry.
According to Yad Vashem, the cost of its involvement in the 2005 march - which was attended by an unusually large number of participants marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two - was roughly NIS 1 million, the same amount it was later given by the government.
The services were commissioned by the Israeli Fund for the Promotion of Awareness to Jewish Bravery in World War Two, founded by Hirchson in 1987. The fund is one of the four non-profit associations organizing the march.
Haaretz has learned that the fund asked Yad Vashem to pay suppliers, including Gesher Tours, the travel company organizing the march. On December 8, 2005, Yad Vashem transferred NIS 51,341 to the company to pay for the flight expenses of guides from Israel who attended a training program in Poland. Yad Vashem then decided to transfer an additional sum of $15,000 to a bank account registered to the fund for "educational materials."
Yad Vashem told Haaretz the money came in part from the institution's budget, funded by the Ministry of Education, and partly from the pockets of the participants.
According to Yad Vashem, its assistance to the 2005 march was within the framework of its routine activity. The institution claims the funds were transferred to it by the Tourism Ministry as is usual and customary.
In addition, Yad Vashem claimed it did not collect payment for its services for the march because it decided to become an active partner in the 2005 march, owing to its historic importance. Finance Minister Hirchson offered no response.
Hirchson probe uncovers new money trail
The police investigation against Hirchson has revealed that substantial sums of money have been deposited to his account and that large sums of cash have been sent to his Tel Aviv home.
Hirchson is suspected of using NIS 5.65 million embezzled from Nili, a non-profit organization associated with the National Workers Histadrut Union, in order to finance political activity in the Likud, the party to which he belonged at the time. He is also suspected of embezzling funds from non-profits organizing the March of Remembrance and Hope in Poland.
Ovadia Cohen, who served as Nili chairman from 2000 to 2003 and has confessed to embezzlement, told police that envelopes full of cash were sent to Hirchson before he embarked on trips abroad. Sarah Amrani, Hirchson's bureau chief, is also under police investigation.
After the completion of the probe concerning Hirchson's allegedly illegal involvement with Nili and the non-profit associations linked with the March of Remembrance and Hope, the investigation will focus on other allegations.
These include alleged fraud in other companies and associations, mainly in Sela - a daughter company of the National Workers Histadrut Union. According to one testimony, land allotted for agricultural use owned by the company was sold to Ofer Hirchson, the finance minister's son. Shortly after the sale, the land was declared a commercial zone.
Sources informed about the ongoing investigation told Haaretz that the police probe did not cover connections between Hirchson and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
They added that Olmert, who is a longstanding personal friend of Hirchson, was not under any suspicions regarding the affair.
They also refuted rumors that Hirchson loaned public funds to the prime minister: "The loan of NIS 200,000, which Hirchson allegedly gave Olmert from the funds of the National Workers Histadrut Union, is not subject to investigation," they said.