Yad VaShem

Yad VaShem is the Israeli Holocaust memorial. They allow pictures only outdoors. So the bulk of what is here is off limits to the camera.
The 1st picture is at the start of the site. The 2nd picture is outside the children's memorial. This part is stunning. It is a dark room with many, many lights like candles above, below and around. Each child who has been identified gets named aloud together with his home, in English and in Hebrew. The light, especially candles, are a Judaic symbol of life.
The 3rd picture is of part of the main building that is cantilevered, with the other end buried. The last picture is a small exhibit before the entry that changes regularly. It's the only thing I could photograph.
I can say that this museum is different in some ways. The main exhibit goes from showing European Jewry living out their lives before the rise of the Nazi party. It follows the rise of the Nazis, the gradually increasing oppression up to and including the death camps.
I have been to the Holocaust museum in Washington and to Dachau, Auschwitz and Birkenau. All those place show the horror and let the visitor leave feeling that. This museum, in Israel of all places, doesn't do that. The exhibit continues on after the war. When I got to the section on the Righteous Among the Nations (the recognition of non-Jews who risked their lives to help), I felt a very different feeling. The horror didn't go away exactly, but it was at least partially replaced with a sense of what might be relief or, even hope of a future without horrors like the Holocaust I was and am most impressed by this.Les mer