Yad Vashem

Today we went to the Holocaust museum. It's called Yad Vashem, which comes from a verse in Isaiah that talks about God giving a memorial to those whose posterity have been cut off.

It was super crowded. Our tourguide kept getting muscled out of the way by other tourguides. It made it kind of hard to absorb everything, I'm not gonna lie. Our teacher had given us an article to read, though, that talked about a lot of the history of the Holocaust in kinda the same way that the museum presented it, so it was really helpful to have that background, at least. One thing that really affected me was a display where they just had a pile of shoes in a pit on the floor. They looked like they'd been just left there to rot- like, they were really old and musty looking- and it was just really striking to see that and be reminded of the scale of this. I mean, it wasn't like their names and crimes were read out and then they were shot or hanged or whatever. It was tens of thousands at a time. They just cranked the bodies through as fast as they could process them. Sorry, that's kind of graphic.

It was interesting, because I almost felt like I wasn't in Israel anymore. Like, it's such a different aspect than the ones we've been studying, where our focus has been on the Old Testament and Christ. Today we saw the full force of Satan as we wind up to the last days. And it's only going to get worse.

On that happy note... My favorite part of the museum was the memorial to children that died. It was so beautiful and peaceful. It's a dark room filled with mirrors and a few candles, and the light from the candles reflects all around, so that it looks like millions of candles floating in the darkness. We talked in Old Testament recently about the seeming unfairness of Heavenly Father commanding the Israelites to kill the women and children in their conquest of the Promised Land. And my teacher reminded us that children who die are brought into the Celestial Kingdom. We say that our suffering is but a small moment in the scope of eternity, and while the suffering of the children in tragedies like the Holocaust is more than we ever had to even think of at that age, it's really an even smaller moment, and they receive their reward immediately, and are welcomed back into the Savior's embrace after passing through their brief test of mortality. And I felt that peace inside this room. I wanted to stay in there all day.

We also saw the commemorative grave with the eternal flame and names of the conentration camps set into the stone around it. Honestly, I felt like these memorials were more meaningful to me than the depictions of history in the museum. Oh, the other thing that did stick with me about the museum, though, were the videos of interviews with survivors, telling about some of the stories. One woman was telling of how the Nazis came for her family. The children hid in the closet, and as they were about to be taken away she asked if she could get her coat. When she opened the closet door, she said, "Goodbye children. Run to the [neighbors']. I love you." And she was very emotional as she said that they never saw her parents again.

After Yad Vashem, we took a tour of Mt. Herzl, which is right above it. Mt. Herzl is known as the "Holy of Holies" of secular Judaism and the state of Israel. Herzl was a prominent Jewish leader of the Zionist movement- which is the movement that led to the creation of the state of Israel. Before he died he expressed a desire to be buried in Israel. So, when the state was first created, David ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister, brought his bones to be buried here on Mt. Herzl, in order to bring a "centralized spirituality to the new capital," since most of the traditional Jewish holy sites were still part of Jordan at that time. Mt. Herzl is where they hold ceremonies for Independence Day and things like that. And a lot of secular Jews really do treat it like a holy site.

It's a beautiful park. Really well-landscaped, gorgeous. They bury all their prime ministers there, and I think my teacher said about half of Israeli soldiers who are killed in combat (the others are buried in similar cemeteries around the country). It's above Yad Vashem to symbolize the rising from the depths of tragedy in Jewish history to the height of its triumph in the creation of the state of Israel. It was freezing today, by the way, so although we spent like 3 hours there, that's about all the history I absorbed. But it was very, very beautiful.

Well, tomorrow night I'm teaching everyone how to dance. I'm going to teach a little bit of cha cha. I'm kind of excited and kind of really nervous... Hopefully it'll be good... :) Wish me luck!