Yad Va Shem
"a name and a memorial"
"And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (a "yad vashem")... that shall not be cut off." Isaiah 56:5 "Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority" is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament. Located at the foot of Mount Herzl on the Mount of Remembrance (Har Hazikaron) in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem is a 45-acre complex. Containing sculptures, outdoor commemorative sites such as the Valley of the Communities, a synagogue, archives, a research institute, library, publishing house and an educational center, The International School for Holocaust Studies besides the memorials listed here that I was able to experience. Yad VaShem has adopted as its emblem a profile of the path leading up to the Pillars atop the Children's Memorial. The Path and Pillars appears as a torch burning like the eternal flame of the Israeli people’s living memorial to the Holocaust. Yad Vashem safeguards the memory of the past and imparts its meaning for future generations. For over half a century, Yad Vashem has been committed to four pillars of remembrance: Commemoration, Documentation, Research and Education The new Holocaust History Museum, opened in March 2005, was built as a prism-like triangular structure. Its stark walls are made of reinforced concrete, and it covers an area of over 4,200 square meters, most of which is underground. At the uppermost edge of the shaft is a skylight, protruding through the mountain edge. The museum is designed so the visitor begins above underground, proceeds to the lowest underground point in the center of the museum, and then slowly walks upwards towards the exit. The exit from the main part of the museum is onto a balcony overlooking a stunning view of Jerusalem, the visitor stepping from a dark corridor into direct sunlight. A central 180-meter walkway (prism) was built with exhibition galleries on either side. Between the galleries are impassable gaps extending along the breadth of the prism floor. These gaps constitute a physical obstacle, guiding the visitor into the adjacent galleries, yet always enabling eye contact with either end of the prism. The prism is therefore a longitudinal axis of historical memory, crossed by the visitors as they move from one gallery to the next and from one subject to another. The ten galleries are each devoted to a different chapter in the history of the Holocaust. Multimedia presentations incorporate survivor testimonies and personal artifacts donated to Yad Vashem by Holocaust survivors, the families of those who perished, Holocaust museums and New Section 1 Page 1
Vashem by Holocaust survivors, the families of those who perished, Holocaust museums and memorial sites around the world. The galleries are set up chronologically, with the testimonies and artifacts accentuating the individual stories used to highlight the historical narrative throughout the museum. A Shattered Word, Life in the Ghettos, Life in the Camps Resistance, Rescue, Children in the Holocaust, the Surviving Remnant, Remembrance. Unique settings, spaces with varying heights, and different degrees of light accentuate focal points of the unfolding narrative. At the end of the Museum’s historical narrative is the Hall of Names—a repository for the Pages of Testimony of millions of Holocaust victims, a memorial to those who perished. Liz's Brief Glimpses:
" In the second half of the 1930's the Nazi regime appeared to be a success. Germans were satisfied with the stabilization of their political system and most accepted the abolition of democracy and the persecution of opponents of the regime. Their country had been saved from economic depression and the German army had been rebuilt…" "At the last moment my mother asked if she could get her coat… She opened the closet (where children were hidden) and whispered, "Goodbye children, go to the Tenebaums…" I never saw here again…" "If a child were absent at school the teacher would ask if they were sick or missing… if missing they would ask no more but erase the name from their roll."
Excerpt from Youth Org. writings from Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania: "We, the young members of Irgun Brit Zion, have decided to keep a record of our history. If we remain alive the book will be a remembrance of our Zionist work in the Ghetto. However, should our fate be to die, this book shall stand as a monument to all our sacred work. Almanac of the Defiant Ones - Ha'-Ma'apilim (1944) Shalom Shorenson remembered (16 years old then): "They lined us up on the edge of the pits but they were so full of dead bodies that it was not far to fall. I heard my grandfather begin the Shema (Hear, O Israel) the shooting began... The Lithuanians shot us… not Germans! I was the last of the line. I once managed to say, the Shema before I fell among under the dead and I was petrified… to scared to move or cry out. No, As I lay among the corpses I felt the movement of another body and there was another boy was still alive, we helped each other out of the death. Hahalutz Halohem: "We must write three lines into Jewish history… Jewish youth rose up and fought for the honor of their people…" Akiva youth movement in Krakow
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"The camp's law is that those going to their death should be deceived until the end." Tadeusz Borowski (1922-1951) a Polish writer and journalist, and an Auschwitz and Dachau survivor. "Don't rush to fight and die…we need to save lives. It is more important to save Jews than to kill Germans." Tuvia Bielski (1906–1987) was the leader of the partisan group the Bielski partisans who were situated in the Naliboków forest in pre-war Poland (now western part of Belarus) during the World War II. The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem is the Jewish People’s memorial to each and every Jew who perished in the Holocaust – a place where they may be commemorated for generations to come. The main circular hall houses the extensive collection of “Pages of Testimony” – short biographies of each Holocaust victim. Over two million Pages are stored in the circular repository around the outer edge of the Hall, with room for six million in all. The ceiling of the Hall is composed of a ten-meter high cone reaching skywards, displaying 600 photographs and fragments of Pages of Testimony. This exhibit represents a fraction of the murdered six million men, women and children from the diverse Jewish world destroyed by the Nazis and their accomplices. The victims’ portraits are reflected in water at the base of an opposing cone carved out of the mountain’s bedrock. At the far end of the Hall is a glass screen onto which Pages of Testimony are projected. From here one may enter a computer center and search the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, with the assistance of the Hall of Names staff. The Center also offers blank Pages of Testimony and survivor registration forms. The Children's Memorial is a unique memorial, hollowed out from an underground cavern, is a tribute to the approximately 1.5 million Jewish children who perished during the Holocaust. Memorial candles, a customary Jewish tradition to remember the dead, are reflected infinitely in a dark and somber space, creating the impression of millions of stars shining in the firmament. (The design allows only five small candles and an elaborate series of mirrors to reflect the 1.5 million children who are remembered.) The names of murdered children, their ages and countries of origin can be heard in the background. The children's names are taken from Pages of Testimony in the Hall of Names, Yad Vashem. The Children's Memorial was designed by architect Moshe Safdie and built with the generous donation of Abe and Edita Spiegel, whose son Uziel was murdered in Auschwitz at the age of two and a half.
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Atop the children's memorial are a series of pillars symbolizes the deceased. The massive stone pillars which make up the ground level monument do not all stand erect; some of the pillars are broken while others are fallen to the ground symbolizing the abrupt ending of these young lives. Together the amalgam of differently sized pillars represents the varying ages and stages of maturity of the perished children.
'Torah' Memorial to the Victims of the Concentration and Extermination Camps Nandor Glid (1924-1997), cast bronze sculpture by Marcelle Swergold
Memorial of the Warsaw Ghetto Doctor and his beloved children Janusz Korczak was the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, a Polish-born doctor, author and educator. Born in Warsaw to an assimilated Jewish family, Korczak dedicated his life to caring for children, particularly orphans. He believed that children should always be listened to and respected, and this belief was reflected in his work. He wrote several books for and about children, and broadcast a children's radio program. In 1912 Korczak became the director of a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw. In 1939, when World War II erupted, Korczak volunteered for duty in the Polish Army but was refused due to his age. He witnessed the Wehrmacht taking over Warsaw. When the Germans created the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940, his orphanage was forced to move to the ghetto. Korczak moved in with them. On August 5 1942, German soldiers came to collect the 192 orphans and about one dozen staff members to take them to Treblinka extermination camp. Korczak had been offered sanctuary on the “Aryan side� of Warsaw but turned it down repeatedly, saying that he could not abandon his children. Now too, he refused offers of sanctuary, insisting that he would go with the children. The children were dressed in their best clothes, and each carried a blue knapsack and a favorite book or toy. Joshua Perle, an eyewitness, described the procession of Korczak and the children through the ghetto to the deportation point to the death camps: One eyewitness account: "... A miracle occurred. Two hundred children did not cry out. Two hundred pure souls, condemned to death, did not weep. Not one of them ran away. None tried to hide. Like stricken swallows they clung to their teacher and mentor, to their father and brother, Janusz Korczak, so that he might protect and preserve them. Janusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward, holding the hand of a child, without a hat, a leather belt around his waist, and wearing high boots. A few nurses were followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar. (...) On all sides the children were surrounded by Germans, Ukrainians, and this time also Jewish policemen. They whipped and fired shots at them. The very stones of the street wept at the sight New Section 1 Page 4
policemen. They whipped and fired shots at them. The very stones of the street wept at the sight of the procession. From Władysław Szpilman's book, The Pianist: "...I am sure that even in the gas chamber, as the Zyklon B gas was stifling childish throats and striking terror instead of hope into the orphans hearts, the Old Doctor must have whispered with one last effort, ‘it's all right, children, it will be all right’. So that at least he could spare his little charges the fear of passing from life to death."
Righteous Among the Nations
The Avenue and Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations honor the non-Jews who acted according to the most noble principles of humanity and risked their lives to help Jews during the Holocaust. 2000 trees, symbolic of the renewal of life, have been planted in and around the avenue. Plaques adjacent to each tree give the names of those being honored along with their country of residence during the war. A further 18,000 names of non-Jews recognized to date by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, are engraved on walls according to country, in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Pillar of Heroism (1968) At the end of a path paved with smooth stones and bounded on both sides by blocks of grey concrete symbolizing the destruction, there rises the Pillar of Heroism, commemorating Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. The towering pillar is reminiscent of the chimneys of the crematoria, but unlike the chimneys, this pillar is open to the elements. The inscription on the concrete blocks reads: “Now and forever in memory of those who rebelled in the camps and ghettos, fought in the woods, in the underground and with the Allied forces; braved their way to Eretz Israel; and died sanctifying the name of God.”
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