What an incredible experience it was to go to the Holocaust memorial museum here in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem means "a name and a memorial" in Hebrew which is taken from Isaiah 56:5. We couldn't take any pictures in the actual museum but here are a few from the outside.
You can compare and contrast these two pieces and how they portray the Jews.
This sculpture is right outside the children's memorial. This man directed a Jewish orphanage in Poland and instead of just abandoning the children, he died with them in one of the extermination camps.
It was definitely a somber experience. It was a lot to take in. You really just wonder how this possibly could have happened. The museum was phenomenal though and did a fantastic job and portraying the events that surrounded this horrible time in our world's history.
This is a memorial that has each of the 21 names of the death camps with a casket of ashes from the cremation ovens and a flame that is always burning.
This is our Israel teacher, Ophir Yarden. He has taught us so much! We love him!
Outside on the grounds there are lots of trees planted. These have been planted in memory of the "righteous among the nations" who were gentiles who helped save hundreds of Jews from extermination. It was an incredible experience.
One quote I loved was from Rabbi Nisenbaum who said, "In the past our enemies demanded our soul and the Jew sacrificed his body in sanctifying God's name. Now the enemy demands the body of the Jew. That makes it imperative for the Jew to defend it and protect it." Before when they were being persecuted and people wanted them to convert it was a sign of heroism to be a martyr. But now, when they wanted their bodies it was an act of heroism to keep your soul alive.
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