Article I Had Published in Israel

      I traveled to Jerusalem to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum.  It prides itself as being the Jewish People’s memorial to the Holocaust as it acclaims the events that occurred during that time and aims to both educate and impart an understanding of the horrific events of the past.  It is the center of world for commemoration of the Holocaust and provides a plethora of information about the rise of anti-Semitism and the Nazi regime all over the world from beginning to end.  The museum’s name comes from the Hebrew words Monument (Yad) and Remembrance (Vashem), and that is exactly what it is.  It contains stories, testimonies, and other detailed accounts of the Holocaust.  Yad Vashem is more than a museum; it’s an emotional experience.  It begins with a video that depicts life before the war on European land containing original footage showing communities, large photographs, and other remnants of the Jewish world.  It shows the normality of Jewish life before the war that turned their worlds upside down. 

      Turn left and there is a stark contrast upon approaching the section titled “The Nazi Rise to Power.”  My heart skipped a beat when I arrived in the room and saw huge swastikas.  Growing up it was always an image that stung.  I anticipated seeing that sign that I hate so deeply and yet when it first hit my eyes it was a shock.  That one symbol, however, was only the beginning to a day in which a series of photos and footage would antagonize me.  The early galleries contain pictures of huge public rallies that spread negative feelings towards the Jews.  Hitler knew there is strength in the masses, and with the public getting together with Nazi flags, anti-Semitic sentiments quickly pervaded country after country.  Astute quotes and questions to ponder are posed in the various exhibits throughout the museum.  One such quote said by a German Jew, Kurt Tocholsky was, “A country is not only what it does but also what it tolerates.”  When he said this he was referring to Germany’s compliance in the Nazi regime and pre-meditated murder, however it can be applied to the countries all over the world involved in such atrocities.  Many Jews throughout the world had to deal with the struggle of identity as a part of their particular nation and that of being a Jew.

      It must be understood that anti-Semitism existed long before Hitler and the Nazis.  I learned about the Christian Church and how they hated the Jews for their rejection of Jesus as the messiah and blamed them for killing him.  In this section, I experienced artwork that depicts Jews as inferior to Christians that exist in paintings, drawings and sculptures.  In these works, Jewish women were portrayed with their heads lowered and covered.  Their eyes were covered as well in order to represent the Jews blindness to what they perceived as the truth: the Christian religion.  Such artworks still exist in certain places in the world.

      Other forms of propaganda existed such as unthinkable things like a board game.  There was one called “Out with the Jews” in which the players follow a figure wearing a “Jewish hat” which looks like a cone.  The objective of the game is to be the first to bring the figurine to the “assembling point” depicted by a man, woman, and child with the caption “Out to Palestine.”  It’s amazing that people could actually make a game out of pre-meditated murder and persecution.  It made me sad to think about the cruelty people are capable of.

      I think the most powerful parts of the museum were the pictures and videos.  It is difficult to read and see the humiliation and abuse used not only on the Jewish people but also gypsies, the mentally ill, and homosexuals.  I viewed pictures of innocents being arrested and shot on the streets, villages burning, synagogues destroyed, giant boxes of civilian’s belongings who were forced to leave their homes, Rabbis being taken from their homes and so much more.  The work of artist Marcel Janco stuck with me.  He depicted the terrible treatment of the Jews in the forms of a Jew under the boot of a Nazi, someone being killed with an axe, and people being held at gunshot.  What affected me the most was seeing the people talk first-hand about their experiences.  One man said he saw the synagogue where he had his bar mitzvah being burned down.  I can’t even imagine witnessing such an atrocity.  And to him, that was the least of it.  From the time he was young, he was beaten for being Jewish. 

Yad Vashem definitely influenced the way I feel living in Israel for the past 4.5 months.  Being here, I have met people from all different parts of the world who have come together to be here in the Jewish State.  I thought about the fact that although the Jews been persecuted and expelled since the beginning of time, they have persevered, continued to flourish, live all over the world, and now have their own nation state.   The museum made me contemplate the idea that the magnitude of the Holocaust would have been lesser if Israel had existed in the 1930’s. The Jews had no homeland, and now they do.  If something like this were to happen again, they would all come here.  It’s a comforting thought and something for which I am grateful.