זכור את אשר עשה לכם עמלק

B"H

Most Israelis still enjoy their summer vacation and like to travel around. Either abroad or in Israel. Jerusalemites like to go to the beach in Tel Aviv and the Tel Avivim come to us in order to see the Kotel or the Ben Yehudah Mall.

I am also rather lazy this week and feel like traveling and seeing something. First, I was planning to go to Hebron today but the terrible heat makes me just look for an air condition all the time. Who wants to walk around outside ?
Finally I decided to go to Yad Vashem where I haven't been for more than two years.

The entrance is rather complicated. Of course, there is security staff all over the place but we were asked to leave our bags in a cloakroom. Not even cell phones or cameras were allowed inside the museum. Only wallets and personal things.

The new building is huge and the exhibition is very personal. In every corner there is a screen with someone talking about his / her Holocaust experiences. The museum is overwhelming with all kinds of personal belongings from the victims: photos, toys and even cutlery and watches.

As a religious person, I am always very interested in religious matters during the Holocaust. A few weeks ago, ASimpleJew wrote an article about a wallet made by the Nazis from a Sefer Torah was offered on ebay.
When I went through the museum I remembered his article and particularly paid attention to any similar objects. It didn't take too long and I saw a Torah parchment given from a Nazi to a Jew in order to make him (the Nazi) a wallet. This happened in one of the camps.

Jews who had converted to Christianity were not saved from the Warsaw Ghetto. On the contrary, the Germans also arrested them although but kept them separately inside the Ghetto. In the end, those people also had to join fate with the Jews who didn't give up their religion. What a waste of effort running into idol - worship and gain nothing.

The most shocking thing to me was a clay model consisting of three parts. First the Jews went into the gas chamber, the second clay model showed how they died and the third part showed the "Sonderkommando" pushing the dead bodies into the ovens.
Everything was only made out of white clay but it was incredible real.
Each exhibition room in the museum shows a different time period. First, when Hitler came to power, then the restrictions for the German Jews, occupation, war, Final Solution and survival.

The exhibition about the Warsaw Ghetto is very detailed. You come in and think that you are standing in the middle of the Ghetto. There are real train tracks, street lamps and a movie is shown. You look at the movie and you really look inside the Ghetto. Into the daily life. People being squeezed in a small territory like animals are rushing through the streets; beggars, children, dead bodies and even the Rich. The museum visitors are standing on the tracks and think that all this is so real, that we are surrounded by those people.

The negative thing about Yad Vashem is that it is mostly far too crowded and people just jump from one exhibition to the next. However, it is always good to be reminded of how deep humanity can fall.

Especially one short movie frightened me. The Germans were destroying the Ghetto and shooting people. Not too far away, acrobats were entertaining the Polish population. It was a Sunday afternoon and the smoke from the Ghetto was rising over Warsaw. Neither the acrobats nor the Polish Gentiles cared and went on enjoying their lives in the middle of Warsaw. Only a few hundred meters away from the burning Ghetto.