11/28/12 – Yad Veshem

The tour switched gears with a visit to Yad Veshem, Isreal’s national holocaust memorial and museum.  Its mission is to not only document the atrocities of the holocaust, but also to preserve the memories of those who died.  Too often the history of war focuses on the impersonal events, but these “events” happen to people.  The grounds and building at Yad Veshem are elegant, imposing and impressive.  The entire complex is constructed with Jerusalem and the main hall is a long triangular structure with subtle design touches that correspond with the prevailing sentiments at certain points in history.  For instance, the building narrows and the floor declines to match the lowest and most difficult point during the holocaust, the forced labour camps where people were stripped of their identities and rendered feral.. less than human.  It widens and rises again as the liberation and the State of Israel emerge.

But most impressive to me was the Hall of Names.  It’s a round room lined with binders of containing the individual files of over 4,000,000 Jews who died during the holocaust.  The design of the room absorbs all but the loudest of sounds.  It’s practically silent…and so it should be.

The amount of information available at Yad Veshem is staggering; we practically ran through with our tour guide skipping over large sections to keep us on schedule.  Even with all the sorrow that this place conjures up, I couldn’t help but think of Chief Rod and his wife Doreen, and their Sioux background.  North America’s First Nations, one of the most marginalized groups of people in history are still largely forgotten.  Who is documenting the lives of their dead?

Chief Rod was telling our tour guide about his adolescence and how at one point he received recognition as a “human being” and not an animal.  Despite the history she had just spent so much time recounting to us, the gravity of Chief Rod’s admission didn’t seem to register with our tour guide… quite sad.