Yad Vashem

Val here.

Israel has redesigned the Yad Vashem Memorial which honours and gives name to the six million individuals that were murdered by the Nazis for their crime of being Jewish. The building is remarkable; the long cement structure looks like a huge boat. Inside one walks a long gruelling passage through this horrific period of European History to end up on a large patio overlooking the beautiful hills of Jerusalem.

Arieh and I have returned to Yad Vashem on 4 separate days. The rooms follow themes: the loss of human rights in Germany, Kristallnacht, deportations, the enforced ghettos (Lodz, Kovno, Warsaw), the transports, requests for allied response (inadequate - virtually every safehaven country in the world turned their backs on the Jewish citizens begging for safety), the gas chambers (including a huge truck that moved around and gassed prisoners with carbon monoxide poisoning), partisans, righteous gentiles, forced labour camps, forced long marches, liberation. In the penultimate room entitled "Room of Names", a huge well of tears is surrounded by all the names of the perished the museum has documented; They have listed more than three million names despite the massacres of entire families and entire villages.

There are also other memorial rooms: to the one and one half million children murdered by the Nazis and their ilk, a memorial room and candle which lists in bold type the names of the concentration camps, and a gallery of the artists of the Shoa, many whose art was teminated when they were killed at Auschwitz or on forced marches. After a Red Cross visit to one camp the artists were tortured and killed for giving art to the visitors which might show the truth about the camp.
Throughout Yad Vashem, individuals on videotape tell their stories. Partisans, hidden children, forced labour camp survivors, survivors of the Lodz ghetto where they had to deport all children under 10 and all the old people, survivors of selection - they tell their stories - so matter-of-fact until they come to the loss of a family member or a friend where their eyes well with tears.

The last room is a room of meditation - quotations are projected on the wall. One sits in this sombre room and tries to figure out why.

And yes - Jews who are sad need to eat - Yad Vashem has one of the best lunch cafeterias in Jerusalem. Moreover, there is a wonderful book store on the premises.

There is so little one can say about those millions of lives wasted, lost to the world. What makes a perpetrator, what makes a continent of indifference, a world of indifference, what makes a righteous person? Why are there so few?