JERUSALEM – Mayor Bloomberg expressed pride yesterday at being selected to head the American delegation to the reopening of Israel’s new Holocaust museum, saying it was something that would have amazed his father.

Mr. Bloomberg was chosen by President Bush to represent the American people at the opening of the $56 million Yad Vashem museum.

Focusing on the deaths of six million Jews who perished in the Nazi genocide, the museum was designed by Israeli-American architect Moshe Safdie, and is 45,000 square feet – four times larger than the building it replaces.

“I’m just proud that the president invited me to lead the delegation,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters.

“I grew up in a world where we didn’t know presidents, and the thought that somebody from the Bloomberg family is being invited to represent the president of the United States, I suppose would be something my father, who’s probably looking down on us now, would find just amazing.”

Bloomberg, who was born in 1942, said that as a young boy, his father tried to explain what had happened to the Jews of Europe during World War II.

“I do remember us sitting around the table and my father trying to explain to me what had gone on in Europe when it came up in the history books,” Bloomberg said. “You can’t understand how anyone could do that to other human beings. I don’t know if there is an explanation.”

The delegation Bloomberg heads included Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and Mayor Koch.

Dignitaries from some 40 countries joined the American delegation for the museum’s opening.