YAD VASHEM– Still so much to learn and remember

Yad Vashem in Jerusalem is the Jewish People’s living memorial to the Holocaust.

It safeguards the memory of those who were slaughtered and teaches future generations about the unspeakable horrors.

Many people think that if they’ve visited it once then there’s no point in going again – but they are so wrong. The area that Yad Vashem covers both physically and emotionally, is vast and there are new exhibits constantly being organized.
On a recent visit I saw  the shul/ synagogue.

Apart from being used for regular prayers it is also used for people who want a place to say  Kaddish, or to sit down and pray after an emotional visit.

It contains various items of Judaica from shuls all over Europe including  four Arks for storing the Sifrei Torah which all came from Rumania and were procured for Yad Vashem with the help of  Rumanian government.





Next door to the shul is a new exhibit to honor the Righteous Amongst the Nations who saved Jews during the Holocaust.


Inside there are five areas with seating to watch different films depicting the different ways in which people were saved, including those who took in children and returned them to the Jewish authorities after the war, those who hid families in cellars, countries where someone in the the government intervened and rescued them and those where both the Jews and the non-Jews were discovered by the Nazis and killed.

The stories are both fascinating and very moving and shed a new light on the history of Jews saved by Gentiles.

We then visited the new Learning Centre also known as the “Center for Major Questions Arising from the Holocaust,” which attempts to discuss and give opinions on  the many  theological, societal and military questions raised by the Holocaust.



Some are just not answerable, i.e. Why did G’d let the Holocaust happen, but are still discussed. Others are given a selection of answers from various appropriate people / authorities, i.e. Why did the Allied Air Force not bomb the tracks to Auschwitz.



Yad Vashem has also launched a new more urgent collection of personal items that are, or were,  in the possession of survivors. Our guide told us many stories of items that children of survivors thought were of not much interest, but for others provided an only link to their parents/ grandparents who perished.

Yad Vashem works very hard to trace people ( or their descendents) mentioned in letters/ notebooks or identified on photos it receives.

As Eli Wiesel once said- Anyone who listens to a witness, becomes a  witness himself.

JERUSALEM DAY – the reunification of Israel’s capital

Forty four years ago  the barriers which divided Jerusalem  into two came down and the city was once again united and open to anyone, of any religion, who wanted to visit and pray at the holy places.

Until then, Jews had only been able to gaze from afar at their holiest site, the Kotel, the  remains of the the Western Wall  of the Temple which was closest to the holiest spot inside  the Temple.

Now we are free again to come and pour our hearts out in prayer and  in thanks.

Prayers, dreams, hopes and wishes tucked into the crevices between the stones.

 

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t thank G’d for the privilege of living  here; of bringing up my children and grandchildren  here in the city that so many millions of  Jews  over the centuries could only dream of. There is nowhere else in the world where we feel so close  and connected to our past and to G’d.Nowhere in the world is it easier to be a Jew.

 

At Sukkot time most of the Jerusalem restaurants have a sukkah.

 

Tour guides  walk around with the Tenach in their hands as a guide book and point out places to to visitors that they had only heard about in Religious studies lessons.

Every day ‘new‘ artifacts from our past are being dug up showing us how our ancestors lived and connecting us irrevocably .  Below is a section of King David’s Palace in Ir David ( David’s City) which is being excavated in the valley below the Kotel

 

The Talmud tell us that “Ten measures of beauty descended to the world – nine were given to Jerusalem and one to the rest of the world”

Jerusalem is indeed  the most beautiful place in the world, both  physically and spiritually.

Walking along the alleyways of the Jewish Quarter . 

Autumn at the Botanical Gardens

 

Yad Vashem – memorial to the 6 millions Jews slaughtered during the Holocaust.

 

The model of Jerusalem during the time of the 2nd Temple, now housed in the grounds of The Israel Museum

 

Watch this  short film by Aish Haorah about what Jerusalem means to the Jewish people.

 

Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel - May 2nd

I have written on Holocaust themes many times and by far the most popular blog post – the one that gets the most ‘visits’ is this one about the hidden synagogue built in Theresienstadt concentration camp

A HOLOCAUST STORY – The Hidden Synagogue of Theresienstadt

The people mentioned in the story are still trying to find someone who knew of this synagogue-  maybe even prayed in it so please pass on the story to anyone you know who might have been  in Theresienstadt.

Both sets of my grandparents were from Germany and I well remember my amazement when I heard this story about my grandfather.

A cattle truck used to transport Jews to concentration camp now on display at the Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem in Jerusalem

 

My mother and her sisters reached the safety of England on the kindertransport and  her first months there were very traumatic.

I wrote in last week’s blog that this year marks  50 years since the capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann Hitler’s second in command who carried out the edicts of  the Third Reich  with terrifying enjoyment  and horrifying precision.

These stories and all the other accounts of survivors must continue to be told so that the world never forgets and no one can ever deny what happened.

Fifty Years since Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem

“When I stand before you O Judges of Israel, to lead the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, I do not stand alone. With me are six million accusers. But they cannot rise to their feet and point their finger at the man in the dock with the cry ‘ J’accuse’ on their lips for they are now only ashes – ashes piled high on the hills of Auschwitz and the fields of Treblinka and strewn in the forests of Poland.”

With these words, fifty years ago this month, Israel’s Attorney General Gideon Hausner opened his case against Adolf Eichmann, one of the prime instigators of the Final Solution ( annihilation of  the Jews in Europe.)

Eichmann was found and kidnapped by the Israeli Mossad ( secret service) after a long painstaking search  in Argentina. He was smuggled aboard a  plane and brought to Israel, to Jerusalem, to stand trial for the crime of genocide of the Jewish people.

 

Throughout his trial he sat, totally expressionless, in his bullet-proof glass cage – through grave accusations and grueling, horrifying testimonies.

Eichmann’s trial was a turning point  for many people:

It had a profound effect on the world’s outlook on the Holocaust. Live television coverage kept viewers all over the world informed   day after  day constantly hearing about the horrors that the Germans  perpetrated.                                                                      It also gave holocaust survivors in Israel ‘permission’ to retell the terrors  they went through.   Until then they had felt they had  to suppress their stories and to try to become the consummate  ‘sabra’ – tough, brave and responsible for their own destiny.

This facade didn’t mesh well with the picture of the  victims of  the gas chambers and concentration camps, and so they had been encouraged to ‘forget’ their past.                                              

But when the trial opened, the nightmares and memories resurfaced and flooded out and the silence of thousands of  survivors was finally broken.

The new generation of Israelis looked at their relatives /neighbors/ fellow soldiers / work colleagues who had survived  Hitler’s inferno in a completely new light.

They learnt that bravery and courage doesn’t always have to show itself in physical fighting, but can be seen in retaining a human character in the face of inhuman treatment; in helping others under conditions when you could barely keep yourself alive.

Eichmann’s capture and televised trial showed  the world to what depths of depravity  human beings can descend.

Now  50 years later, there are people who want to deny that it ever happened.

No Holocaust.

No ghettos.

No round-ups and transportations in airless cattle trucks to suffocate to death,en route to being slaughtered

No concentration camps where millions were beaten and tortured to death and  fatal medical experiments were carried out.

No gas-chambers spewing human  smoke.

No death marches.

No  total destruction of hundreds of Jewish villages and communities.

Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to the Holocaust, has now put 200 hours of  the Eichmann trial  on YouTube so the testimony and the truth can be heard once again  by all. ……… But  probably the only ones  who want to hear it  are those who  know that it’s true.

We must continue to bear witness and show the insidious lies of the Holocaust deniers.