Prague Journal

Friday, April 22, 2005.

Despite the fact that I had been at the Temple Mount and the Hadassah Medical center seven years ago, I was disappointed that I would not be able to see the Mosques and the Chagall Windows again. Since tonight is Shabbat, the few things that are open all close at 2pm, so Rick and I were determined not to let the morning’s opportunities slip away. Rick went to the Israel Museum and I took a bus to the new Yad Vashem Museum. We had both been to Yad Vashem seven years ago, and Rick had spent a full day there many years before that. But the new museum is an entirely new structure, with new presentation and some new holdings, including videotaped interviews of many holocaust survivors, many of whom were filmed by Stephen Speilberg during his filming of Shindler’s List.
Yad Vashemn is the Jewish people’s memorial to the murdered Six Million, and symbolizes the ongoing confrontation with the rupture engendered by the Holocaust. Containing the world’s largest repository of information on the subject, Yad Vashem is a leader in Shoah education, commemoration, research and documentation. Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, was originally established in 1953 by an act of the Israeli Knesset. Since its inception, Yad Vashem has been entrusted with documenting the history of the Jewish people during the Holocaust period, preserving the memory and story of each of the six million victims, and imparting the legacy of the Holocaust for future generations through its archives, library, school, museums and recognition of the Righteous Among the Nations. Located on Har Hazikaron, the Mount of Remembrance, Yad Vashem is a vast, sprawling complex of tree-studded walkways leading to museums, exhibits, archives, monuments, sculptures, and memorials.
At the entrance to the museum complex is the Avenue and Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations, which honors the non-Jews who acted according to the most noble principles of their humanity, risking their lives to help Jews during the Holocaust. Two thousand 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 as Righteous Among the Nations, are engraved on walls according to country, in the of the same name.
The new Holocaust History Museum occupies over 4,200 square meters, mainly underground. Both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, it presents the story of the Shoah from a uniquely Jewish perspective, emphasizing the experiences of the individual victims through original artifacts, survivor testimonies, and personal possessions. The Art Museum witnesses the strength of the human spirit, and holds the world’s largest and most important collection of Holocaust art. It includes works of art that were created under the inconceivably adverse conditions of the Holocaust, and a selection of works done after the war by Holocaust survivors and other artists.
Unique to Yad Vashem is the Hall of Remembrance, a solemn tent-like structure which allows visitors to pay their respects to the memories of the martyred dead. On the floor are the names of the six death camps and some of the concentration camps and killing sites throughout Europe. In front of the memorial flame lies a crypt containing ashes of victims. Memorial ceremonies for official visitors are held here. The Memorial to the Deportees is an original cattle-car which was used to transport thousands of Jews to the death camps. Perched on the edge of an abyss facing the Jerusalem forest, the monument symbolizes both the impending horror, and the rebirth which followed the Holocaust.
Across the grounds there is a small Children’s Memorial, hollowed out from an underground cavern, where memorial candles, a customary Jewish tradition to remember the dead, are reflected infinitely in a dark and somber space. This memorial is a tribute to the approximately one and a half million Jewish children who perished during the Holocaust. There is also a 2.5 acre monument “Valley of the Communities,” dug from the natural bedrock. Engraved on the massive stone walls of the memorial are the names of over five thousand Jewish communities that were destroyed, as well as the names of the few that suffered but survived in the shadow of the Holocaust.
Yad Vashem’s archive collection is the largest and most comprehensive repository of material on the Holocaust in the world, with 62 million pages of documents, nearly 267,500 photographs, and thousands of films and videotaped testimonies of survivors. The library houses more than 90,000 titles in many languages, thousands of periodicals, and a large number of rare and precious items, establishing itself as the most significant Holocaust library in the world. Holdings may be accessed by the public on site, and residents of Israel are entitled to limited borrowing privileges. The Hall of Names is a tribute to the victims by remembering them, not as anonymous numbers, but as individual human beings. The “Pages of Testimony” are symbolic gravestones, which record names and biographical data of millions of martyrs, as submitted by family members and friends. To date, Yad Vashem has computerized 3.2 million names of Holocaust victims, compiled from approximately 2 million pages of testimony and from various other lists.
Yad Vashem also houses the International School for Holocaust Studies, the only school of its kind in the world. With 17 classrooms, a modern multimedia center, a resource and pedagogical center, an auditorium and over 100 educators on its staff, the school caters annually to over 100,000 students and youth, 50,000 soldiers, and thousands of educators from Israel and around the world. Courses for teachers are offered in 8 languages other than Hebrew, and the school also sends its professional staff around the world for the purpose of Holocaust education. The team of experts at the school is developing a variety of educational programs and study aids on the Holocaust including advanced multimedia programs, maps, books, cassettes and other educational aids. The International Institute for Holocaust Research coordinates and supports research on national and international levels, organizes conferences and colloquia and publishes a variety of important works on the Holocaust, including memoirs, diaries, historical studies, a scholarly annual, and more. Yad Vashem also publishes history books, diaries and document collections in Hebrew and English. Yad Vashem has published over 200 books, which constitute the backbone of Holocaust literature in Israeli society. In recent years, 24 books have been published annually. Most Israelis, indeed most Jews, have many Holocaust victims in their family tree, and a large number have grown up with people who actually survived the ordeal. Many more see remnants of the anti-Semitism and hatred that led to the Holocaust. But those of us who lead easy lives should take time to visit these memorials and realize that there are still those in our midst who wish to annihilate people simply because they differ in customs, beliefs, or origins. I do not mean to trivialize the enormity of my experience when I report that I was in a somber mood as I took the bus back to Ronnie and Yaffa’s flat.
This week is traditionally a time of spring cleaning, owing its origin to the preparation for Passover. The home is made spotlessly clean and the tables are set with the finest dishes and table ornaments. In the afternoon, before sundown, observant Jewish families prepare their homes for Passover by searching for chemetz, or leaven. In religious homes all chemetz must be sought out, and either sold or burnt. Ten pieces of leaven are placed on window sills and shelves by the mother and a special search by candlelight is acted out for the children the evening before the Seder is to be observed. The children watch carefully as father, using a quill feather and a wooden spoon, carefully dusts off these pieces to be burnt up in the morning, and listen carefully as he explains that the leaven is a symbol of the wrongs we must erase from our hearts and lives. The smell of burning chemetz was in the air around the neighborhood of Bet Hakareem. Ronnie decided to sell his chemetz to aliens instead of start a fire on their deck.
Ronnie and Yaffa’s middle son, Aviv, joined us for a relaxing Shabbat dinner. We had not seen Aviv since the Kosloffs’ stay in Boulder five years ago. Aviv is in school now, studying film. He’ll complete his bachelor’s degree this spring.

posted by JWinn @ 10:28 PM