In the Hall of Names, a vast archive surrounds a powerful collection of faces of people killed during the Holocaust. Of the roughly six million Jews murdered, about half have been identified by surviving family and friends. Pages of their testimony are archived here. The purpose of it all: to give as many victims as possible, whose deaths were as ignominious as their killers could manage, the simple dignity of being remembered.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
It’s hard to really imagine the extermination of six million people. And it’s hard to imagine that roughly a quarter of these people, slaughtered like animals, were children. The Children’s Memorial at Yad Vashem helps make it real.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
Recently, for the first time, Israel’s population has passed 6 million. That’s significant because it’s greater than the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust and it’s greater then the number of Jews in the USA.
Understandably, Israel works to keep the memory of the millions of Jews killed by Hitler alive and strong. I imagine that with the new generation and the passing of the generation that actually lived through that horror, this will become a bigger and bigger challenge.
Anyone who visits the solemn and impressive Yad Vashem memorial, and absorbs its message, will be deeply moved and affected.
Photo by Trish Feaster (for her blog, see The Travelphile)
It was interesting to me that a recurring theme here is how humanity ignored the plight of the Jews in the 1930s and ’40s. The memorial reminds us that when Hitler was warned that his plan to exterminate the Jewish race would damage his image, he responded, “Who remembers the Armenian genocide?” The memorial honors the 24,000 Europeans who aided the Jews while reminding us that the remaining 160 million turned a blind eye to their plight.
A particularly vivid example of non-German insensitivity to desperate Jews was the plight of the over 900 Jewish refugees packed onto the ocean liner SS St. Louis, which sailed to Cuba in 1939. The passengers were fleeing almost certain death in Germany. They had planned to disembark in Cuba and, with their transit visas, enter the US. But by the time the ship got there, Cuba denied them permission to land. The St. Louis sailed on toward Florida, but President Roosevelt wouldn’t let them land, either. Ultimately they returned to what would soon become Nazi-controlled Europe, except for about 280 Jews who were taken in by Great Britain. Only half of the remaining passengers survived the war.
Leaving the museum I told our guide I was very impressed. He agreed and then pointed out how the architecture, while sleek and modern, was also built like a bomb shelter (no windows and a bomb-resistant, concrete-slab roof). He said, “This is necessary as we don’t have so nice neighbors.”
Photo by Trish Feaster (for her blog, see The Travelphile)
Christians from around the world come to Jerusalem to follow the Via Dolorosa (“Way of Grief”), and to follow the route Jesus walked when he carried his cross to Golgotha to be crucified. Today most of the Via Dolorosa feels like a touristy shopping mall through Muslim and Christian quarters of the old city, but the presence of devout pilgrims like this Eastern European congregation gives it a sacred feeling nevertheless.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
The religious scene in Jerusalem is complicated even for tourists. Before planning our day, my guide asked me my religion. Local guides know that, among Christians interested in seeing Jesus’ tomb, most Protestants prefer the tomb in the Garden Tomb while Catholics like the tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. While I’m Lutheran, this is one case where I definitely go with the Catholics.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is built upon the summit of Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. Because it’s holy for all kinds of Christians, who see things differently and don’t communicate very well, it’s a cluttered religious hodgepodge of various zones — each controlled by a different sect. There are chapels for Greek Orthodox, Franciscans, Coptic Christians, Armenians and so on — each run by a different community or sect. To make any decision about the church in general, they need to agree unanimously. That’s why nothing much gets done here in the holiest church in Christendom…and it feels that way.
Of the Stations of the Cross, most lie along the Via Dolorosa. But the last five are actually in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Number 10 is where Jesus was undressed, and Number 11 marks where he was nailed to the cross. Number 12 is where he was crucified. Number 13 is where his body was given to Mary. And finally, number 14 marks his tomb. Each is busy with pilgrims.
