I Remember

Today as I write, it is Yom HaShoah, a day to remember for Holocaust victims.  It is widely celebrated in Israel, while somewhat more quietly observed in the United States.  It marks the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, used to remember the six million Jews who perished across Europe.  I have always felt a strange sort of Jewish “survivor’s guilt,” having descended from a family that left the pogroms of Russia early in the 20^th century.  Because I had no relatives in Europe during World War II—all four of my grandparents were born in America—I did not grow up with firsthand accounts of hiding and terror and survival, or see the numbered tattoos that marked the parents or grandparents of other kids in my neighborhood. Nonetheless, we are taught that what happened to one of us happened to us all.  So despite having no Holocaust DNA, I am sad and awed and humbled each year on this day (actually, the 14^th of Nissan on the Jewish calendar) as I contemplate man’s inhumanity to man.

The translation of Yom HaShoah is, literally, “day of remembrance.”  When I visited Israel two decades ago, I was struck by ubiquitous posters and billboards that said, simply, “Remember.”  It was explained to me that as witnesses to the Holocaust become fewer each year, there is a fear that our collective conscience will allow the memory (and thus, the reality) of the Holocaust to be expunged.  At the time I thought this to be impossible, but more recent events, where world leaders deny the Holocaust, demonstrate how transient even documented historical facts can be. 

It is with thoughts of guilt, humility, responsibility, and a sadness for all mankind that I visited Yad Vashem on my first trip to Israel.  Yad Vashem is Israel's Holocaust Memorial--truly the saddest place on Earth.  Situated on a quiet promontory over the Jerusalem forest, even the most jaded visitor cannot escape being moved by this thoughtfully designed memorial plaza and museum committed to documentation, commemoration, reflection, and education.  At the highest level, it projects hope for the future of Jews and Israel while it also aims to capture, through witness testimony, artifacts, videos, and other accounts, the facts and the magnitude of the Holocaust. 

I think of Yad Vashem as an intellectual Rubik’s cube, forcing the visitor to experience the Holocaust from every angle.  In one pavilion you learn of the many concentration camps—far more than you thought existed—sprinkled across Europe.  In another, you see the head count of the slaughtered masses by country, appreciating how quickly and violently the wave of Nazi violence washed across every corner of Europe.  In some countries, like Poland, Jews were truly exterminated down to the last man. 

One of the most impactful exhibits is The Hall of Names.  The one I visited in 1993 is not the same as today’s, with its cone-shaped ceiling papered in photos and testimony of 600 Jews who perished, their images reflecting in a pool of water that fills a reciprocating cone dug into the rock.  In my day, the same photos lined a small space anchored by a dense filing system containing nearly two million testimonials for Holocaust victims.  Any individual is welcome to present documents confirming a relative who perished at the hands of the Nazis.  Today, the repository is built to house six million testimonials, never giving up hope that each man, woman and child lost will be identified and preserved for posterity.  Here in this room, anyone can access the database and look up their relatives.  My kids have several stories of their friends’ visiting Yad Vashem and finding heart-breaking documentation of their grandparents and cousins.

For me, the most moving pavilion is the Children’s Memorial.  We entered a dark cavern with no light except a distant glow.  As we moved through the space, there were more and more lights, until it seemed like we were floating in space with stars all around.  A distant sound was barely perceptible.  As our eyes acclimated to the ambiant darkness, we realized the lights were candles, commonly used to symbolize life.  The distant sound became identifiable as a voice.  Soon, the candles were so numerous that they brought a sense of daylight in the dark.  There were different voices—men and women—each uttering a different name in slow succession.  Moving still further through the maze we arrived at the source of light.  It was a single candle.  Across mirrored planes, the single flame reproduced itself infinitely throughout the space until the masses of flickering lights transmigrated the senses: the sight was deafening!  Only then do you realize the significance.  There were 1.5 million children killed in the Holocaust.  Each was more than a single life; each was a pinpoint of light that would have reflected in generations to come.  The chant of names was no longer white noise—we recognized the tender age corresponding to each name .  These were the children whose lives were stolen, robbing them of their innocence and dignity before finally and unceremoniously snuffing them out.  As I moved out of the cavern into the light, I did not realize that had been crying.   I wanted so much to hold my own children who were half a world away.  The short exiting walk through “The Avenue of the Righteous Among Nations” provided only cold comfort.

Last year, my twenty-two year old son took a Birthright trip to Israel.  He called me after his visit to Yad Vashem to tell me that his life had just changed forever.  He had the opportunity to visit the new Holocaust Museum, which was only in the planning stages when I had visited years before.  He described how the walls of the museum were tilted inward, producing an intentionally confined sensation to represent how the Jews were treated.  Walking through the museum, he found himself looking through a glass floor.  Underneath it was filled with shoes—actual shoes that had been taken from doomed prisoners before extermination.  My son was struck by how something so simple—a shoe—could convey the humanity of the victims.  This made it very real for him, seeing his own feet superimposed while gazing upon the vacant shoes.  It shook him like nothing else.

I have no cure for the endemic hatred that permeates every corner of our global village.  I can offer no solution to the political and ideological differences that divide the so-called brotherhood of man.  I do know, however, that while studying history may provide lessons for a better world, living in the past can keep old wounds from healing.  There is profound wisdom in a Day of Remembrance.  Let us all work today for a better tomorrow, remembering enough of the dark past to keep it ever farther in the past.

Tomorrow's blog:  Papa Bear