A Name and a Memory

This isn't exactly a cheerful post, but visiting the Holocaust Museum here in Jerusalem was an incredibly powerful experience. It's taken me some time to be ready to share my thoughts about it, even though my words can't begin to convey what I saw and how I felt. We traveled to Yad Vashem with our Judaism professor, Ophir Yarden, last Monday. The name of Yad Vashem is taken from Isaiah, who tells of the  Lord's promise to give his sons & daughters an everlasting name (56:5).

On my first trip to Yad Vashem in 1994, I only visited the children's memorial, as children under the age of 10 are not permitted inside the main museum. My wonderful mother held me and played with me on the hilltop that memorializes the lives of the millions of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Yad Vashem was stunning. I really don't have words to accurately describe the powerful emotions it triggered within me...I just can't imagine such callous, reckless, calculated hatred. It really is too much to take in, and I was going through the exhibits slowly, so I ran out of time towards the end. I can't decide if I want to go back... The museum itself was very well done, lots of vivid displays, huge blown-up photographs, and actual artifacts. They used a lot of journal entries to illustrate the reality of what the Jews faced and what the Nazi leaders felt (seemingly nothing akin to empathy). As I was somewhat rushing through the final stories from the latter years of the War, I did stop to read about the Bulgarian Jews; the Bulgarian rulers changed their minds at the last minute, just before the final trains to the death camps were scheduled to be loaded, and didn't deport their Jews--so many lives saved... but still so many lost. It really is too big to comprehend. The last exhibit in the museum is a massive circular room lined with black bookshelves, organized alphabetically (in Hebrew) of the names of all of the people who were murdered; each person has a page or two of their information--photos, journal excerpts, etc. It made it just barely comprehensible; too many names for each to be displayed individually; they had to be pages of books that still filled an enormous room from floor to ceiling. In the center of the room, there was a deep well cut into the bedrock below the museum, with a little water at the bottom. I heard someone say that it represented the tears of the people, but to me it seemed like it could have also been an allusion to the many who died standing on the edge of a pit, waiting for the report before the dark free fall. Standing there, listening to all the different languages being whispered around me and seeing all of those books filled with fragments from the stories that had all been cut short... I couldn't handle it nor could I master my emotions. I can only begin to grasp the true nature of such deliberate devastation.

Inside the children's memorial at Yad Vashem. (Photo cred: Spence Anopol)

We actually started our visit to Yad Vashem by exploring the hill around the museum, walking the Avenue of the Righteous (trees planted to honor the people who saved Jews), then we visited the Children's Memorial. It's beautiful, but haunting, and holds an ache that I don't think could ever be totally soothed. As you enter, there is a large display of enlarged photographs of some of the 1.5 million children who were killed, then you walk into a room that is almost completely dark, with only a single candle. But the room is filled with mirrors, so the candle is reflected millions of times, echoing the Biblical quote that graces the gateway to the memorial, invoking the Lord's promise to Abraham that his seed would be as numberless as the stars. As you walk through, the names and ages of the children are uttered; some I heard were three or six years old. It might seem strange to say I loved that place, because I've never experienced anything that made me feel quite the way that did, but I think an abstract memorial like that was the only thing that could ever convey such sorrow and tragedy. Those bright little stars were extinguished far too soon in this life; any sort of factual representation would have been too real, too cold, to comprehend. I can't imagine the agony of the mothers who knew what their children were facing...

All of those tiny lights and names are not something I'll soon forget.

Hezekiah's Tunnel

 

Descend with me into the depths beneath the City of David, the "original" Jerusalem which now lies outside the city walls. In 701 BC, when threatened by an impending Assyrian siege, King Hezekiah wanted a way to transport water from the Gihon Spring on the northeast side of the city to the Siloam Pool on the southwest. The Gihon Spring is on the hillside above the Kidron Valley, while the City of David is on the crest of the hill; this makes the city with its high walls easily defensible. But it was nearly impossible to build the walls high enough to match the city walls and keep the spring inside the walls, which was quite the problem for the ancient Jerusalemites in case of a seige, since they would have no access to water. 

So, Hezekiah decided to dig a tunnel underneath the city to connect the Gihon Springs to the Pool of Siloam, which is within the city walls. He formulated a highly technical plan, which consisted of giving a lot of guys chisels, picks, and shovels; separating them into two teams; and placing one team at the Gihon Springs and one at the Pool of Siloam. Then he told them to start digging.

You need your headlamp in Hezekiah's Tunnel--it definitely gets a bit dark 40+ feet below the city. (with Danielle and Synthia) Luckily, my body acclimates super quickly, so I turned into a mole, as you can see by my nearly non-existent eyes.

 Based on the winding nature of the tunnel, it seems as though the workers didn't have much of a system for finding each other as the tunneled from one side of the City of David to the other. They just went for it and hoped that they'd meet up in the middle. It's pretty incredible that they ever found each other in all that rock (though they did nearly miss--the junction of the once-separate tunnels is a bit...uneven).

Hezekiah's Tunnel was just my size. And I've got to admit, I was pretty excited for an excuse to play in the water AND wear shorts. But don't worry about the big bump beneath my jacket--I haven't eaten that much falafel yet. That's the very modest skirt I wore to walk to the entrance of the tunnel, then rolled up to play in the water. And aren't those Keens SWEET?! Thanks, Daddy!

I tried to hide in one of the crevices and scare people... it might have worked better had people not been taking pictures... I don't think my bright scarlet jacket helped my camoflauge much, either.

Hezekiah's Tunnel is about 1500 feet long, and it was one of the coolest subterranian adventures I've ever had. I don't know what makes wading through fresh spring water in the dark, in a tunnel that was constructed about 27 centuries ago so cool... oh. wait. Maybe just that.

And many thanks and much love to you wonderful commenters (ahem, Jaynee--you win the prize). I love hearing what you think about these Middle Eastern escapades.

Sweet New Digs

uI now live here:

This, my friends, is what you call an upgrade. (I did not take this picture.)


This is the view from my balcony:

This is what you call incredible.

This is another shot of the Jerusalem Center from the road to the Old City:

This is what I now call home.