Yad Vashem: A Walk Through The Heart of History

Sunday, May 7th was Holocaust Rememberance Day.  About five miles outside of Jerusalem's old city , Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum that cuts right the heart of the Har Hazikaron, or the Mount of Rememberance tells the story of Holocaust from its origins to its finale. In the middle of a forest, atop a mountain, with a view of the holy city stands a proud memorial to the culturally vibrant and strong Jewish communities that fought to stay alive.  To say that I was in awe when we reached the mountain and saw the museum and arcs at the entrance displaying a quote from the book of Ezekiel is an understatement. 


"I will put my breath into you and you shall live again, and I will set you upon your own soil...."


The museum, designed by Safdie, emerges as a linear steel gash in the hills, running perpendicular to the ridges and protrudes through both ends.
 


The experience is unlike going to a concentration camp or a history museum.  The steel structure evokes emotions deep, an imprisonment and takes visitors on a historical journey.  Safdie appropriated permission from The Holocaust Martyr' and Heroes' Rememberance Authority to use steel instead of traditional marble stone.  The glazed glass vertex of the building allows light to filter through the center of the museum.  From the outside the the museum violently cuts through the mountain.  I suppose Safdie had a distinct purpose in having the museum violently cut through the land.



The museum displays force visitors to walk through trenches, a left to right forced march creating a switchback path of movement from gallery to gallery.  The museum uses a multitude of techniques and media.  The galleries are alive with videos, scenes from history, interviews of survivors, texts, newspaper headlines, re-created environments, the bunk beds in camps, objects and belongings.  Light in the center spine of the museum, hightlights the worn out train tracks resecued from Warsaw.  I never knew a set of train tracks could stir so much sentiment.

Safdie's architecture and placement of the museum and its displays is the powerful shell that does bear witness and reflects on the thoughts and events that led to extermination and ultimately a fight for freedom.


Teenage Israeli soldiers sit slumped against the steel watching a video of an extermination camp, while asian tourists read the ration card dictating the 140 calories maximum mandate at a Jewish Ghetto.  High school students listen to their guides; several languages ring clear in the many alcoves.


The stories commemerating the 6 million Jews lost in the Holocaust are told in a distinctly personal fashion.  Letters in a glass case from a wife to her husband speak to the desperation and yet small inclination of hope held in the hearts of prisoners; pictures of family members rescued from abandoned coats found in the remains at Treblinka are worn out.  After a grueling and compelling journey through time, visitors exit to the penultimate gallery - the Hall of Names.  A cable suspended zinc-clad dome overhangs bearing pictures of Holocaust victims.  The walls of the perimeter embrace binders with pages of testimony.