Yad Vashem: The Holocaust History Museum

The first time I came to Israel, the group I was with had the privilege of meeting Professor Dina Porat, Head of The Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and Chief Scientist of Yad Vashem, one of the key people responsible for the museum and its exhibits. She spoke so eloquently about the passion behind the memorial, the reasoning behind the exhibits, and the symbolism of the building, all in a compelling invitation for our visit the next day.  

Yanush Korzack
and His Children

I haven’t been to any other Holocaust Museums, but I’ve read accounts, I’ve heard the stories, and I’ve seen the movies.  A wide variety of documentaries are readily available, some of which I’ve watched again since I’ve been in Israel. Even with a pretty fair understanding of the events surrounding the Holocaust and the “Final Solution”, each time I visit, the impact is startling.  I think I know what I will see, and in large part I do, but the way it is presented, the personal way the stories are told, makes it impossible for me to come away the same person who walked in.  

It is difficult to rush through this place.  As you enter, to the left, projected on the wall are movies, salvaged and pieced together of people who likely ended their lives in the Nazi death camps. Home movies of families, towns and villages, merchants and shoppers laughing and waving, students at their desks, children playing.  Each time I’ve visited, the faces and places have been different.  Towns and villages that are no more and the people who lived in them. 

Even the most callous might walk by these faces, these stories, without stopping to look, but the building its self is designed to slow you down.  From the outside it looks merely like a large, long, formidable, triangular building, a huge prism, which it is, but the interior sets before you a meandering path that leads diagonally from one side room across to the other side and another room and back across to the next room.  Each room is crafted to tell another chapter. Bits and pieces of lives, pieced together.

And yet this is more than just a memorial to the dead, it is also a tribute to the spirit of those who struggled to endure, those who found the courage and strength to fight back, and of those who did what they could to stop the death, even if it was only one family, or one person.  The Garden  of the Righteous stands as a reminder that not everyone looked the other way. Many put their lives on the line, often losing them, because they could not stand by silently.   

And then, finally, at the end, past the Hall of Names and the Epilogue, is one of the most spectacular vistas in the country.  The symbolism obvious, a view to the future, open and clear. A relief and a promise after the sadness of the past.

You all know that I am here at the Hand in Hand Schools, Yad b’Yad.  When I looked up Yad Vashem the literal translation was Hand in Name which of course made me think of  Isaiah 49:16, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…” never forgotten, and that might be enough, but there is more.

The newspaper, Ha’aretz Word of the Day on Apr. 28, 2014 was actually Yad Vashem.

“Although the primary meaning of yad is indeed “hand,” it has additional meanings as well, including the Even-Shoshan definition of “tall memorial monument that rises like a hand.” As a phrase, yad vashem refers to an "enduring memorial" or a "memorial monument."  Indeed, Yad Vashem, which was established in 1953, describes itself as “the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust.”

This use of yad, which means “power” and “strength” as well as “monument,” can be seen in the biblical description of a memorial to Avshalom, King David’s rebellious son: “Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar, which is in the king’s dale; for he said: ‘I have no son to keep my name in remembrance’; and he called the pillar after his own name; and it is called Absalom’s monument [yad Avshalom] unto this day” 2 Samuel 18:18.

When you come to the land, do not skip this enduring memorial because you think you know what you will find, or because you know it will be hard.  Given the opportunity, this is a place we should all walk through at least once, if for no other reason than to honor the people whose stories are kept here, whose lives are not forgotten here, and whose memories become ours here.  The horror that made this museum and research center so important, can help lead us to that vista at the end.  A promising future, open, clear and beautiful.

To learn more about Yan Vashem and their research activities visit http://www.yadvashem.org/#!prettyPhoto

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/museum/overview.asp

http://yadvashem.org.il/yv/en/about/friends/christian/index.asp

For the full Ha’aretz Word of the Day Article visit

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/word-of-the-day/.premium-1.587771