Yad Vashem

MJ and I in front of the Museum

Today we went to Yad Vashem [means “a name and a memorial”, taken from Isaiah 56:5].  I was such a sad and somber day, it’s Israel’s Holocaust Museum.

These trees are part of Avenue of the Righteous Among Nations. You walk down this path as you leave the Museum, but Ophir, our professor, explained it to us before we entered. There is a tree planted for any non-Jew who helped the Jews during the Holocaust, their names are written on plaques in front of the tree. It provides a little hope to  see that not everyone was evil. Some people stepped up, some people helped them.

In eight grade I did a week long [maybe longer?] tour in DC with my school. It was a great trip and we learned so much about the founding fathers and our country [so sad that I remember almost nothing from that trip]. Anyways, we spent a whole day at the Smithsonian Museums. SO COOL! One of them is the Holocaust Museum. I opted NOT to go to it. I was scared and felt like I would be scarred, I already couldn’t handle what we had learned about it in school.

This shows the Jews being oppressed and driven out.  This is a replica of the art that was back to back with the piece below in Warsaw during the first commemoration ceremony.

This shows the heroes of the Waraw Ghetto Uprising. ... They fought back.

So, short story LONG… this was my first Holocaust Museum. I was scared and nervous to go, I have a friend here who said she couldn’t handle it and wasn’t coming to join us until after we had finished the museum. I had a way out. BUT … I felt like I needed to go. I am learning about these people.  Living in their country and I just felt like I could do it. I don’t know why.

I am really glad I did. Cami had told me to look out for the Propaganda Hitler had used. That was my biggest question anyways, “How could people do this to other people? What kind of leader was Hitler that he could convince his followers to do such horrors?” It was really interesting. Christianity definitely didn’t help- they had negative propaganda prior to this… for sure.  But Hitler took it to a new level. There was a monopoly game that was themed around ridding Europe of Jews. He had posters and signs with slogans about Jews.

I just can’t get over how recent this whole war was. I haven’t ever really realized that! Especially here where we talk about a thousand year period  every class period in our Ancient Near Eastern Studies class, I am floored that such atrocities happened in the lifetime of my grandparents. When we talk about horrific things that happened to Christians per the Romans hundreds or thousands of years ago.. I can handle it a little better, I feel like humans have grown and developed and matured since then. …. But this, so recent? Some survivors are still alive. It is shocking to me.

This tree was planted by Irma Lauscher in Teresienstadt, a ghetto, because she knew the Jewish children needed to continue to learn and maintain their customs and traditions or else they'd never remember. The tree still stands there today... this is only a portion of it. She created happiness in a very unhappy situation.

This is right outside the Children's Memorial. It was probably the most effective memorial I have ever been to. You start by entering a room with nice music playing and photos hanging all around with images of children and information about them. As you keep walking it gets darker and darker and you end up in a single file line holding on to a rail. You enter a pitch black room, you're on a bridge, and you can only see stars. The names of the children and their ages are read one by one. It was powerful. And so, so sad.

I know, I know. It seems like I am learning this all a little late in life. I have a hard time with church produced videos about Christ’s crucifixion. I can’t watch torture scenes and bad stuff in movies- it messes with my brain. I think about those images forever, never forget them… so I think I just blocked this out of my mind, chose not to learn about it. I couldn’t handle it then.  I mean in my mind “Schindler’s List”  = bad movie. I thought his “list” was a list of people he killed or something. NOT SO. Oskar Schindler was an amazing man. He saved hundreds of his Schindlerjuden [Schindler’s Jews]. I have read so much about him since going to the museum.

The museum was really well planned out. There were 10 different halls each with a different part of the Holocaust. I went thru the concentration camps and extermination halls pretty fast. I was interested in the guards and generals in Hitler’s Army. These were normal guys who lost it. One man wrote home to his family, addressed, “Dear mommy and children” and expounded about how an aversion to killing is only a weakness and the way to overcome it is by doing it more. Reading these made me sick, but also helped me understand better how people could participate in the Holocaust. 

This is the image you see when you walk out of the Museum, it channels your vision to a beautiful view of the State of Israel. You can't help but feel grateful the Jews have a state.

Another part that was really powerful was the hall of the museum that had a pile of shoes on the floor. I spent a lot of time looking at all of the shoes. There were big ones and little ones, colorful and bland, sandals and tennis shoes. It was an emotional stop. I can’t help but put myself there.  What if that was my mom or dad or brother or sister? I appreciated this display much more than any photos. It helped me see that it was people that died, real people with goals and families and personalities and strengths and weaknesses and style. I won’t ever forget that.

Towards the end of the museum there was a hall that talked about the survivors and heroes of the Holocaust. I sat down on a bench and listened to a video of a story told by a lady who survived. At the end of the war she weighed 28 kilograms [61.6 pounds] and had suffered through much, including being detained at Auschwitz. When she gained 10 kilograms she began to feel more like herself and went to work in a hospital. One night she heard a patient screaming and went in to help him. He had blonde hair and blue eyes and she fell in love with him. When he left the hospital he asked her to marry him. She asked the nurse on duty if she had any bandages she could use to piece together a vale from. She found her one and on the day she was married, seven other couples also got married. [This is a big deal because that hadn’t happened for several years because of the Nazi’s.] She said during the Holocaust none of the girls had their periods and she didn’t have breasts. A few months after marriage her breasts began to grow so she went to a gynecologist. He told her she was 3 months pregnant. She said all she could do was cry. She didn’t want a baby and asked the doctor to abort the baby. He wouldn’t do it unless she paid for it and she couldn’t. She said she went home and put a wet towel on her belly and ironed it hoping to harm the baby. She lifted everything heavy she could think of. Nothing worked. She had heard so many crying babies at Auschwitz she couldn’t bare the thought of hearing a baby cry. She delivered the baby and when she saw he was alive she thought of ways she could kill him. However, things changed when she held him in her arms. She said she would walk him the cemetery in his baby carriage often and show him the mass grave and tell him she’d tell him all about it when he got older. … but she didn’t. Nobody talked about it. I was so impressed by this woman. She is so strong to just pick up her life and start from scratch. To start broken and scarred and to make a great life for her children- her and her husband were a cute old couple and every now and then he could get  a word in edgewise!

Me, Brookie, MJ and Heather

The last hall is a circular room full of books with information on any and every Jew that was involved in the holocaust. There were rows and rows, shelves and shelves of books. And then right as you walk out there is a whole section that is empty- info yet to be found.

Clearly, my experience was powerful. I am grateful I could go, grateful to learn.