Yad Va Shem: the Holocaust Memorial |
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Written by Stephen Langfur |
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Confronted by an enormous atrocity, we say, "This kind of thing must never happen again!" But if a thing is not to happen again, it must make a difference to us. That is, it must overcome our tendency to indifference, putting us on guard, leading us to action. In order for an event to make a difference to us, it must be graspable as an event. That is, we must be able to comprehend it, take it in. This is a problem with the Holocaust.
Even the word "Holocaust" ("whole burnt offering") has become such a well-worn, slippery token -- a piece of old currency used to cover new debts -- it can give its users the illusion that they know what they are talking about, when they have long ceased to feel the reality it was coined to represent. The figures roll trippingly off the tongue: eleven million, six million, one and a half. But there is something unreal about this bandying about of numbers. When we speak of people in quantities, we lose sight of their humanity: that in each case these are human beings, bound to each other as we are bound to those we love. By spewing out numbers, then, we cannot grasp the event. It cannot make a difference. So what do we do? We read individual accounts: Anne Frank's, Elie Wiesel's, Primo Levi's, Corrie Ten Boom's. Then we can feel what it felt like to live this event. Inevitably, though, we lose sight of the massiveness -- and that massiveness is an undeniable aspect. This, then, is the problem with the Holocaust: it was massive almost beyond comprehension, yet in each case these were particular lives like ours. In order that this event may make a difference, we must be able to grasp the massiveness without losing sight of the particularity. The Children's Memorial at Yad Va Shem is an attempt to do this. The designer (Moshe Safdie) used candles, darkness and mirrors. The main museum presents documents and photographs. It is a good idea to visit it first, if possible, in order to have the material freshly in mind when one goes through the Children's Memorial. ![]() There is much else too:
Yad Va Shem maintains its own Web site |
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