Hand and Name

Pope Benedict is making his first official visit as pontiff to Israel today and is scheduled to make a speech after touring the Holocaust museum Yad VaShem. I’ve been to this museum twice and thought I’d offer a description of it.

To call this place moving and sobering would be a gross understatement. There are dozens of exhibits with photos, recordings, letters and personal affects of the millions of Jews murdered in Europe during the Holocaust.

One aim of the museum is tracking how a minority (in this case European Jews) is identified, how it’s ostracized and ultimately dehumanized.

Everyone who visits Israel on state business must tour Yad VaShem. It’s a requirement of the nation’s government. And the museum is structured in such a way that it concludes with a walk through a wide, low-ceilinged room of dark stone. This is the Hall of Remembrance. The only light comes from a fire pit and candles lit in memory of those murdered.

It’s been 20 years since I walked through the Hall and into the light of a simple garden that is the end of the museum. The feelings of overwhelming sadness – and admiration that people could survive and rebuild after the Holocaust – are still visceral. And I remember seeing others walk into that garden sobbing uncontrollably. Some, overcome (perhaps by a personal loss) had to lean on family or friends just to make it to the garden.

I remember seeing a TV interview with a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Describing the sound of the detonation, he said the noise was so loud it was “too big to hear.” Yad VaShem can spark emotions too big to feel.

One other thing about the museum: Yad VaShem literally translated means Hand and Name. The ‘Name’ is obvious enough. The museum contains lists of every Jew murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War. The ‘Hand’ part of the title is a little more complex. It’s an allusion to what each person did or, put another way, the work of their hands.

There were many Jewish cobblers, mechanics, carpenters, artists and architects and other trades people killed in the Holocaust. And there are exhibitions that attempt to document what these people did and what they could have done in a world without the prejudice and hatred that led to Genocide.

Here’s a link to Yad VaShem’s website.