Yad Vashem
Content Warning for discussion of genocide and the Holocaust
This is something I wanted to write about as soon as I could and in its own post, hopefully it is coherent. Our fieldtrip today was to Israel's National Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem. Leading up to this trip we've had discussions and readings in both my Israel class and my hebrew class. Reading and learning about what happened is very sobering and especially visiting a museum about it. At the end of our walk through one of my classmates commented, in a way that was not meant disparagingly, but in an attempt to convey how what he saw had made him feel, "that was awful." And honestly? The holocaust was awful.
It is incomprehensible to me what happened. I mean that in the most literal and concrete fashion I am able to convey. I don't think I was able to properly absorb or comprehend most of what I saw. I want to quote from our reading because it encapsulates a lot of what I feel:
"When Jan Karski told the Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter about the ghettos, the death camps, and the slaughter in the East, the distinguished American Jewish jurist responded, 'I can't believe you.' As Frankfurter later explained, 'I did not say this young man is lying. I said I cannot believe him. There is a difference.'" (Michael R. Marrus "The Darkest Hour," from The Illustrated History of the Jewish People, pg. 292).
The situation for me is certainly different than for Justice Frankfurter, this was not brand new to me, I grew up being taught about the holocaust, on occasion meeting survivors and I mean I've visited various Holocaust memorials and museums before, but to really understand the depth of human suffering that happened during the Holocaust would be more than any normal person could bear or understand. Yad Vashem did a good job of showing many different facets of what happened to the Jewish people (and others) at the hands of the Nazis. I think sometimes there is a big emphasis on the concentration camps (which does make sense because they were terrible) but the museum showed so many other parts, the hateful propoganda, the progressive disenfranchisements, the ghettos, it goes on and on.
What struck me most that I did not know or maybe understand until now was how much apathy contributed to the Holocaust. Anti-semitism was just sort of a blasé thing that everyone in Europe seemed to feel. So much of the horrors committed by the Germans could have been prevented or at least mitigated if other had just stepped in, if countries had been more willing to open their borders, if people hadn't been so baseline anti-semitic. I think there's a good lesson from this that we can apply. It definitely felt like an invitation to me to examine my prejuidices. What groups of people would I happily allow to be discriminated against?
At the beginning and end of the museum there is a garden where carob trees are planted in honor of the "Righteous Gentiles" those who willingly risked their lives with no expectation of reward to save Jews. In the reading I definitely had a sense of despair because it seemed like there was so little any one person could do to fight against the Nazi genocide machine. The trees and the people they represent I think are meant to show that there were and are still people who care and who did do the right thing (did you know the country of Denmark saved nearly their entire Jewish population from the Nazis???).
I think that's what I want to take away from all this, that there is still hope. Even in the face of the greatest darkness there are always people willing to help. What I'm taking away the most from this and hoping to apply in my own life is that I want to be a righteous gentile. Things are pretty crazy in the world right now (not that they haven't been before) and I hope that if something like this were to happen, I just pray that I would be brave enough to do what I could to help those in jeopardy. I hope I wouldn't turn a blind eye.
To return to the quote from Justice Frankfurter, there is a difference between can't believe, and don't believe. There is an unfortunate and unfortnuately loud minority who deny the holocaust. I don't believe these people are incapable of comprehending the horrors. I think for them it is more politically expedient, or perhaps it fits better into their racist worldview, to ignore or deny what happened. I feel much in the same way that as a member of my faith I have to have a testimony of certain eternal truths, I need as well to have a testimony of this terrible event. I overheard one of the guides for a different group say that we need to be bearers of truth. And that's what I want to be, even if that truth is terrible and heartbreaking. It is so important that we do not forget what happened and that we do not let it happen again.
At the end of the museum there is a circular room lined with books that contain all the names and records that have been found about victims of the holocaust. It is a haunting room, perhaps moreso than the rest of the museum because for a lot of the people whose names are recorded in these books, this all we have left of them anymore. But I'll just end with this quote from Isaiah 56:5 which is also where the museum gets its name. It gives me comfort on so many levels:
"Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off."
This is something I wanted to write about as soon as I could and in its own post, hopefully it is coherent. Our fieldtrip today was to Israel's National Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem. Leading up to this trip we've had discussions and readings in both my Israel class and my hebrew class. Reading and learning about what happened is very sobering and especially visiting a museum about it. At the end of our walk through one of my classmates commented, in a way that was not meant disparagingly, but in an attempt to convey how what he saw had made him feel, "that was awful." And honestly? The holocaust was awful.
It is incomprehensible to me what happened. I mean that in the most literal and concrete fashion I am able to convey. I don't think I was able to properly absorb or comprehend most of what I saw. I want to quote from our reading because it encapsulates a lot of what I feel:
"When Jan Karski told the Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter about the ghettos, the death camps, and the slaughter in the East, the distinguished American Jewish jurist responded, 'I can't believe you.' As Frankfurter later explained, 'I did not say this young man is lying. I said I cannot believe him. There is a difference.'" (Michael R. Marrus "The Darkest Hour," from The Illustrated History of the Jewish People, pg. 292).
The situation for me is certainly different than for Justice Frankfurter, this was not brand new to me, I grew up being taught about the holocaust, on occasion meeting survivors and I mean I've visited various Holocaust memorials and museums before, but to really understand the depth of human suffering that happened during the Holocaust would be more than any normal person could bear or understand. Yad Vashem did a good job of showing many different facets of what happened to the Jewish people (and others) at the hands of the Nazis. I think sometimes there is a big emphasis on the concentration camps (which does make sense because they were terrible) but the museum showed so many other parts, the hateful propoganda, the progressive disenfranchisements, the ghettos, it goes on and on.
What struck me most that I did not know or maybe understand until now was how much apathy contributed to the Holocaust. Anti-semitism was just sort of a blasé thing that everyone in Europe seemed to feel. So much of the horrors committed by the Germans could have been prevented or at least mitigated if other had just stepped in, if countries had been more willing to open their borders, if people hadn't been so baseline anti-semitic. I think there's a good lesson from this that we can apply. It definitely felt like an invitation to me to examine my prejuidices. What groups of people would I happily allow to be discriminated against?
At the beginning and end of the museum there is a garden where carob trees are planted in honor of the "Righteous Gentiles" those who willingly risked their lives with no expectation of reward to save Jews. In the reading I definitely had a sense of despair because it seemed like there was so little any one person could do to fight against the Nazi genocide machine. The trees and the people they represent I think are meant to show that there were and are still people who care and who did do the right thing (did you know the country of Denmark saved nearly their entire Jewish population from the Nazis???).
I think that's what I want to take away from all this, that there is still hope. Even in the face of the greatest darkness there are always people willing to help. What I'm taking away the most from this and hoping to apply in my own life is that I want to be a righteous gentile. Things are pretty crazy in the world right now (not that they haven't been before) and I hope that if something like this were to happen, I just pray that I would be brave enough to do what I could to help those in jeopardy. I hope I wouldn't turn a blind eye.
To return to the quote from Justice Frankfurter, there is a difference between can't believe, and don't believe. There is an unfortunate and unfortnuately loud minority who deny the holocaust. I don't believe these people are incapable of comprehending the horrors. I think for them it is more politically expedient, or perhaps it fits better into their racist worldview, to ignore or deny what happened. I feel much in the same way that as a member of my faith I have to have a testimony of certain eternal truths, I need as well to have a testimony of this terrible event. I overheard one of the guides for a different group say that we need to be bearers of truth. And that's what I want to be, even if that truth is terrible and heartbreaking. It is so important that we do not forget what happened and that we do not let it happen again.
At the end of the museum there is a circular room lined with books that contain all the names and records that have been found about victims of the holocaust. It is a haunting room, perhaps moreso than the rest of the museum because for a lot of the people whose names are recorded in these books, this all we have left of them anymore. But I'll just end with this quote from Isaiah 56:5 which is also where the museum gets its name. It gives me comfort on so many levels:
וְנָתַתִּי לָהֶם בְּבֵיתִי וּבְחוֹמֹתַי, יָד וָשֵׁם--טוֹב, מִבָּנִים וּמִבָּנוֹת: שֵׁם עוֹלָם אֶתֶּן-לוֹ, אֲשֶׁר לֹא יִכָּרֵת.
"Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off."
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