My journey in Israel part 2 - The holocaust museum

Warning: This is long!

Our first day on the tour was museum day with the 1st "Restoring Courage" event in the evening. We went to Yad Vashem (the holocaust museum) and then The Israeli Museum. So, first, my impressions of Yad Vashem.

When we lived in Germany we visited Dachau. That was one of the concentration camps in the Southeast of Germany. I have seen the dormitories with the wooden bunk beds layed next to each other to maximize the number of people they could cram in. I have seen the meat hooks they used to hang people on to "punish" them. I have seen the ovens they used to cremate the bodies. Although most of the prisoners in Dachau died of disease, not gas chambers, the atmosphere was still very dark and sad. And because I have seen this, I was afraid to go into the museum. As I was about to go in they told me no babies, and I will say I was a little relieved. If David couldn't go in, then neither could I. But our tour guide, Claudia, told me she would take him and meet me at the exit. Now I was out of excuses. So I made up my mind to go through as quickly as I could and meet her at the exit to get David. I had no idea what awaited me.

First thing, the museum has one entrance and one exit and to get to the exit you must walk through the entire museum. Also, no pictures were allowed inside, so I only have photos of the grounds, which I will include a little later. Having been at Dachau, I thought Yad Vashem would be similar. Not at all. It wasn't scary with horrifying pictures or anything like that. It was stories; it was history. You begin your walk with the election of Hitler to the Prime Minister position in the German government. They actually start you right at the beginning. You then pass through actual posters claiming Jews were not human, board games about getting all the Jews out of Germany, and other little newspaper articles grouping all Jews together and then blaming them for all of German's woes. And that is how propaganda works. You don't start by telling everyone to kill, you start by taking people, grouping them together, and then belittling them until the majority of people hate them and will do to them whatever you desire. It was so interesting to see how it all played out - so methodical, so perfect.

As you wind through the different areas they have stories told by survivors of the different periods throughout that time frame. From isolation and boycotts, to wearing the Star of David, to being rounded up and living in the ghettos. Then testaments from Rabbis forced to put together the list of people to be put on the trains to work camps (death camps later on). There were stories of "The Righteous Among the Nations," who were those who put their lives in danger to protect Jews and to feed them. One of those stories that caught my attention was a farmer who hid a family in his root cellar. The neighbors found out and told the SS. The Jews were taken, he was beaten, but he did not give up. Instead he dug a hole, covered the entrance, and hid several more Jews there, feeding them, until the war was over and they were safe. That man has a place secured for him in Heaven, I am sure.

There was an area for the Kristallnacht, Auschwitz, the trains, and also for, and please excuse my lack of terminology here, the rebellions which began to take place inside the ghettos. But there were 2 things in the museum that impacted me more than anything else. One was a large pile of shoes, covered in glass, that you had to either walk over or around. Most people walked around. And after talking with others, that was one of the most impactful displays for several others on the bus. The other was the room of records. There is a large, circular room with book shelves that start well below where you stand and go well over your head. I'm a terrible judge of height, but sufficeth to say, the bookshelves were large enough to hold the tens of thousands of books with the names of nearly all 6 million Jews killed. They want to make sure there is a record of everyone killed - by name. And the bookshelves are not yet filled because there are still thousands of people who have yet to be identified. It is a very sobering thought and a very solemn place to stand.

So, when I originally thought I would hurry through and go to my baby, I ended up being in there a full 1 1/2 hours. And, really, I just brushed the surface of the things in there. You could spend an entire day in there, or even more, if you stopped to read everything and listen to each and every story. I will say, though, that I was very impressed that they focused on the history behind the holocaust rather than simply the atrocities. Because you must understand how it began in order to stop it from ever happening again.

And on top of just the main museum, there were 2 other buildings we went to. The first was The Hall of Remembrance. The names of each of the camps are engraved on the floor and there is an eternal flame. This is where dignitaries go to lay wreaths to honor those who died. The other building is even more sombre. There is an entire memorial dedicated to the children who were killed - The Children's Memorial. Again, no photos were allowed, but I took this at the entrance. The memorial is done by lights and mirrors. The room you walk through is kept dark while mirrors reflect little white lights and names of children and their ages are read in Hebrew and English. I really believe it is a fitting tribute.

As you exit there is another sculpture that I thought caught the emotion of the children killed. This is in remembrance of Janusz Korczak. A Polish doctor who worked at an orphanage. The children were sent to the ghettos and he went with them. They were ordered to be exterminated at Treblinka and he went with them. He was offered immunity, and was even told not to go into the ghetto with the children. But he would not leave them. Even in the end he was offered a way out, but he would not leave his children, and died with all 192 of them.
All along the grounds there are sculptures depicting different events done by different artists, and there are trees planted in remembrance of "The Righteous Among the Nations." Here are a few more of the pictures I took at Yad Vashem.

David and I outside the exit of the main museum.

















One of the sculptures in the gardens. There are 6 points on the sculpture, representing the 6 million Jews killed. You find things done in 6s all around Jerusalem representing those killed in the Holocaust.















This is the tree planted of Oscar Schindler. It was one of the last trees planted because they were unsure how to salute this man appropriately. In the end, they decided a tree, along with all the others who saved a Jew, was the right thing. It is a pepper tree, as many are, and grows pepper corns each season. My understanding is that he was a simple man in life and did not wish to bring any undue attention to himself, so they decided honoring him the same as everyone else is what he would have wanted.

Since this ended up being so long, I will wrap my day in another blog post.