My Visit to Yad Vashem

On the last day of my Birthright trip we went to Yad Vashem. I was dreading the visit and my stomach already felt in knots the night before. Though I am a historian and thoroughly enjoy studying Jewish history, I avoid studying the Holocaust. While the Holocaust history course is a popular course in the history department at my university, I knew that I could never handle a whole year of constantly reading and seeing the images week after week. I much prefer studying the high points in Jewish history: the rise of the Jewish immigrant in North America, Golden Ages, and Yom HaAtzmaut.

For this blog post I am going to write about the images and parts of the museum that are stuck in my memory as I write this post several weeks since I returned from Israel. As a person who hopes to work in a museum, I am most interested in the lasting images and feelings one takes away from a trip to a museum.

I arrived at Yad Vashem on a sunny Sunday in Jerusalem, which was a rarity during my time in Israel, where I experienced severe rain. Located on Mount Herzl, I was surprised by the complex’s size. The complex contains several buildings such as the Holocaust History Museum, Art Museum, Exhibition Pavilion, and Learning Center. It also has beautifully landscaped grounds with a variety of monuments and sculptures.

One of my group’s first stops on the tour was at the entrance to The Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations. I found it very important that our tour guide took my group to the Avenue before we entered into the depths of the triangular shaped building where the Holocaust Museum is. Though I was a good undergraduate student, and when my Professors asked me to list the causes of the Second World War and the Holocaust on an exam I would dutifully write the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the switch from Jew-hatred to anti-Semitism and so on, but these never felt like complete answers to me. I can’t comprehend how people kill innocent children, or even watch over them as there locked-up and starving.

Irena Sendler

I found it very beneficial hearing about the individuals commemorated at the Avenue before I entered the museum, because it gave me something positive to remember when I felt choked by the images. The Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations is a path that has a tree planted in honour of each of the brave Gentiles who risked their life, and their families lives, to save Jews. At the entrance to the Avenue is the tree for Irena Sendler. Sendler was a social worker employed by the Welfare Department of the Warsaw municipality. In September 1943, Sendler was appointed director of Zegata’s Department for the Care of Jewish Children, during which time she saved thousands of Jewish children, even keeping their locations secret when she was arrested. Though I may still be unable to fully comprehend the Holocaust and other genocides, even though I am an adult who has been hearing and learning about these events since a young child, I find the stories of individuals’ bravery and kindness one of the only ways of comprehending such atrocities.

Tree for Irena Sendler
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/sendler.asp

The part of the museum that I most enjoyed was the video reel of clips of Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the war. The reel is the first image you see once you enter the museum.  The clips included images of singing school children, women waving in front of store shops, and musicians. The reel was to remind museum visitors about the full life Jews led prior to the Holocaust. My grandfather, who was a Holocaust survivor, had actually came to Canada prior to the war, but returned to Poland because he missed it. This has always been a point I have had issues fathoming as I see Canada as my home, and have the knowledge of the coming doom hindering my ability to picture Jewish daily life in pre-war Poland. But in the video images, I could see the full community life that my grandfather missed, and decided to return to.

 

 

One image that I keep thinking about is the painting The Refugee (1939) by Felix Nussbaum. In the painting a man is slumped over on a stool with his head in his hands. Beside him is a stick and a bundle of belongings, he is ready to travel. However, the door to the outside is blocked by a globe that is covered by shadows. The painting is near the beginning of the Holocaust museum, which is organized in a chronological narrative. The painting represented for me one of the most infuriating parts of Holocaust history, the anti-Semitic immigration policies of Allied countries prior to WWII.

The Refugee
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/nussbaum/nussbaum_5.asp

At the end of the museum there is the Hall of Names. The Hall of Names is a memorial for every Jew that perished in the Holocaust. The ceiling of the Hall is cone shaped, displaying pictures and fragments of Pages of Testimony. Under the ceiling cone is an opposite floor cone, where the images are reflected in the water base. As I was walking around the cone, looking up at the images, one picture made me stop. It was a picture of two sisters in their bathing suits outside on a sunny day. The image captured my worst fears about the Holocaust –being small and powerless, and being taken away from the people I love the most without knowing what is happening to them. The photo stood out for me amongst the many images because my sister and I have many pictures like the one I saw in the Hall; were just fortunate to be born fifty years later. I have been trying to find (but haven’t yet) the picture in the Yad Vashem on-line archives so I can remember the two girls names.

After the Hall, my group exited the museum, and got to inhale the cool Jerusalem air, while having an amazing view of the city covered in snow. (This made everyone excited, but the group of Canadians.)

I don’t have any wise words; this post is just a collection of things stuck in my memory. On a side note, as I finish writing, my sister is ladling out matzo-ball soup for our dinner tonight. 

*Images and information taken from http://www.yadvashem.org/

*Also, if this happens to survive as a source in the future, I don’t want it to be used by a historian writing about the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. I am not very good at expressing my thoughts. Most of my thoughts in this post are incomplete.