Yad Vashem — The World Holocaust Remembrance Center
Growing up outside of Washington D.C., my childhood was littered with voluntary and involuntary visits to the free Smithsonian museums. For me, museums have always represented a deeply personal opportunity to wander, ponder, and at times, feel deeply uncultured (see figure below from the National Gallery of Art, West Building).
Anyways, we are now a full week into the 2017 Cornell Tech iTrek trip to Israel (#techtrek17), and we’ve already had so many incredible, perspective broadening experiences. However, for this post, I wanted to specifically share some thoughts I had on this morning’s tour of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
Caveat: Before I continue, there is no way I’m going to pretend I have anything to add to what is one of the most harrowing and retold stories in the history of mankind. Instead, I’m going to do what I do best: share three disconnected stream of consciousness thoughts buoyed by an earnest attempt to tie everything together at the end (#consulting). Here we go!
1. Yad Vashem is so well designed: the building is triangularly shaped so that as you walk through it, you feel like the walls are closing in on you; the building (shown to the right in the picture below) is tipped with glass, allowing light to seep in to serve as a reminder that the atrocities of the Holocaust happened not just in darkness, but during broad daylight. Moreover, as you are slowly guided through the museum, you are snaked in and out of dark rooms showcasing the horrific events. Each time you exit a room, you are given just a little bit of sunlight (representing hope) before you are plunged deeper into the story. The essence that the museum captures of having something to cling on to, and then have it repeatedly taken away is an indescribably dark and eerily haunting feeling.
2. Gradual indifference is terrifying: Throughout the tour, our guide continued to emphasize that the evil and death from the Holocaust wasn’t a result of just one hateful man (often incorrectly positioned as a scapegoat), but rather a gradual indifference of the collective. Our tour guide asserted that, a cultural attitude of nonchalance during Germany’s economic crisis in the late 1930s galvanized a subtle turning of heads (see poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller). Cultural, religious, and racial abasement are all such a slippery slope towards hate. In the immortal words of 2pac: “real eyes, realize, real lies.”
3. Hope does not disappoint: When I visited the Holocaust Museum in D.C., I remember feeling so immeasurably dejected upon exiting — it felt like evil had won. Fully prepared for a post-museum depression, I was stunned by how differently I felt after walking out of Yad Vashem. When you finally make it through the museum, and all of the darkness encapsulated in each exhibit, you are greeted with an amazing view of thriving Jerusalem. As our tour group approached the overlook, our guide gathered us and exclaimed “Look! See the city… filled with laughter, love, and life. This is our victory — this is the product of our hope.”
Freaking awesome.
Charged with a daunting task of telling not just one story, but the story of millions, Yad Vashem recounts the Holocaust in tremendous detail and total thought. Coupled with the experiences throughout Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, I have gained a fuller understanding of the perseverance of the Jewish people, their unwavering hope for the future, and the strength that they draw from the past.
Thanks for having me,
David