We went to Yad Vashem, the Israeli holocaust remembrance museum this morning (after a fascinating underground tour of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount beneath the Arab Quarter). Using video from the Spielberg project, copies of precious archives such as Schindler’s List, images, sounds, quotes, narratives, and symbolic architecture, the museum and its various memorial halls are breathtaking and tear jerking. Many of the stories told in this museum are taught in Facing History and Ourselves, which I took in high school. Much of the clothing, shoes, pictures, watches, medical research tools, video reels, etc. are very similar to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Much of the empathy, anger, embarrassment, pride, bewilderment, fear, compassion, sadness, rage, confusion, and a whole bundle of other mixed emotions are the same that I felt walking through the Museum in D.C.
Bearing witness to the systematic and institutionalized atrocities committed just two generations ago, and learning about international responses is a very humanizing experience. Looking at the face of young child killed in the gas chambers is uncomfortable. Reading the unfinished diary of a confused teen-ager growing up in an overcrowded ghetto is difficult. Reviewing the rise of mass cultures of hatred, and then learning about courageous individuals (including my ancestor’s land of Denmark, where even the King of Denmark wore a Jewish star in protest to the demands of the Nazis) forced me, once again, to think introspectively. I am so humbled when I ask: what might I have done if I grew up in Nazi Germany, or if I lived in Vichy France. How might I have exhibited courage and showed commitment to the values I hold dear?
Walking through the underground halls of Yad Vashem, and then walking out to the platform overlooking the hills of Israel has once again put our entire trip into context for us. Battles, conquerors, oppression and oppressed … Israel serves many purposes for many people. For the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, Israel promises that their tragedy will not happen again. Israel came too late for the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust, but for the rest of us, Israel stands as a beacon (a very controversial beacon) of how we might realize the vision: never again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I was interested to see your comment about having learned some of this history in your Facing History class in high school. If you are interested, Facing History is looking for alumni who took the course or unit in school, to be part of our Alumni Project. Are you interested?
Post a Comment