Mourning and Celebration

A fighter jet flew over as we sat drinking coffee. Strange, we thought, but let it go. Perhaps it was a training exercise. That was the morning of April 19. Paul went to his library office as usual.

Saving the orphans -
sculpture at Yad Vashem

At 10 am a blaring air raid siren wailed its loud, insistent tone. Elliot, Oliver and I listened for a few seconds; then as it went on, anxiety began to rise. We heard Father Tim's voice on an upper balcony saying clearly, "People are supposed to leave their apartments and stand outside" so we hastened to obey. (We weren't sure how being outside would help us if there was an aerial attack, but followed the instructions.) The siren soon ended and we went back to our desks, wondering what that was all about. Maybe someone had escaped without a permit from behind the wall at Bethlehem, and they were chasing him, I thought.

At about 10:30 am I hopped onto a bus and went to town for groceries. All the Israeli flags were at half-mast. What had happened? The Palestinian bus riders didn't seem the best people to ask, so I went ahead and did my shopping. It was a little quieter than usual in the store, but no-one commented, or if they did I couldn't understand them.

I sometimes take a taxi home from grocery shopping. Clambering onto an already-crowded bus with great bulging bags of groceries leads to a lot of stares, so I get the shop to call a cab. A friendly, talkative driver pulled up, his mini-Qur'an dangling from the taxi's rear view mirror.

Just outside Tantur

"Why are the flags flying low?" I asked the driver. He spoke good English but didn't know what a flag was. When I'd finally made myself understood, pointing to the star-embossed Israeli flags on the street, he was full of information. "This is the day that Israel remembers the Holocaust" he told me. "Many people died. They have silence and remember. Then one week later, next Wednesday, all the shops are closed. All day they are silent. They remember soldiers who died in 1967. That night the prime minister makes a speech. Then they have a party, and everyone is dancing in the streets!" I thanked him, feeling enlightened.

The star of the Jews

Holocaust day! That made sense of the fly-over and the air-raid siren. Israel is haunted by the holocaust; is founded on its history. It was the holocaust that provided an impetus for Western forces to give the Jewish people a homeland after the war. Israel was established in 1948 as a result, celebrated on April 26, their Independence Day. But first, most terribly, came the Holocaust. And this was the day to remember it. The siren sounds and people stop to show respect, standing outside.

The thought of the holocaust and of joining in with this nation's wounds stayed with me. That night I lit a memorial candle. I lit one every night of the week, for six nights. Each night, one candle commemorated one million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Can you imagine? One small light for a million lives. It hardly seems right, but at least it was something, in our home.

Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum, was a fitting place to go that Sunday afternoon. The name "Yad Vashem" comes from Isaiah 56:5 - "And to them will I give ... a place and a name that shall not be cut off."

The Nazis obliterated their prisoners' names and identified them only by numbers. Heads shaved, clothes removed, uniformed, nameless, they became unknown. One victim wrote, "... I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger.” (David Berger in his last letter, Vilna 1941).

Then they were thrown into mass death pits, or exterminated by fire. Burial is very important in Judaism. Jews believe that Messiah will call you from your grave on the last day. But the Jews of the holocaust had no burial, no grave. They were extinguished, with no place and no name.

So Yad Vashem was built. Yad Vashem is more than a museum to the holocaust; it is a living memorial to those who lost their lives in the holocaust. As much as possible, every person whose photograph is displayed in the museum is named. Every known Jew who perished in the holocaust is recorded, though there are some known only to God. Not simply a historical recounting of what happened, the museum has become a final resting place for those to whom it happened. It also stands as a reminder and a warning never to let it happen again.

Nazi memorabilia

Looted Jewish menorahs

From Swastika flags to charges of blame (Christians included), to thankful tributes for those who provided refuge, the museum retells the deprivations and atrocities committed on the Jewish people of the world, in and around WWII. We stood on recreated cobbled roads from Warsaw and saw the wooden side of a cattle car that had herded people to their death. In the middle of one room was a tragic pile of well-worn shoes in every style and shape from that era; shoes that had belonged to people with choice and personality.  The shoes have survived beyond their wearers. In other rooms we saw rich spoils of war; remnants of a cultured, creative society.

Cart to remove bodies

"Heil, heil."

And then there were the photographs. Pictures of living skeletons, people of great intelligence, dignity and worth, their great round eyes staring at us helplessly. Photos of naked bodies lying in heaps like worthless rubble. We saw the slow tears of survivors talking on video camera - these were former war children who had managed to climb out of death pits alive, having heard the gun shots and final cries of their loved ones buried beneath them. We heard stories of terrible, killing hunger. (Having teenage sons, I can hardly imagine the pain of these youths' excruciating emptiness). We heard and saw it all in stark concrete rooms filled with the shards of beautiful lost lives, amid the rousing background cry of thousands cheering "Heil, Heil".

It was moving, sobering, silencing. It was respectful, tragic, meaningful in its timeless tribute. But, bottom line, as Elliot said, "It was horrifying." The harsh truth slapped us. These were people from many, many nations with two things in common: they were Jews and they were murdered. Six million.

Dome of photographs

Walls of record boxes

At the end of the museum is a round room with a high funnel-shaped dome, lined with photographs of people who perished. Their faces, some looking so familiar, gaze down on us from above. The top of the dome opens to heaven. On all the walls around are file boxes full of the names and documents of those who died. Thousands of boxes. Here at last these people truly have a place and a name. They are honoured well by those who will never forget.
 
Our last stop was the Children's Memorial. What a simple room, but how infinite it seems. The lobby is filled with photographs of children, and their voices sing to us in the background. We step in further. The room is very dark and high, lit only by candles. The candles are all there is. No more than five small, living candle flames. But these little lights are multiplied infinitely, like stars in the sky - the stars that Abraham saw when God promised him a child. Five hundred mirrors take those tiny flames and fling them heavenward, refracting and repeating; and so their reflection shines like innumerable lights on and beyond us. We are surrounded by their light.
 

A pastor's protest against indifference

This little light of mine

In the background of this room, names are read aloud, slowly, clearly, in an ongoing recording. Names of children destroyed in the holocaust. Destroyed but not forgotten. Each of the one and a half million children is named, with their age at death, and their country of origin. Slowly, thoughtfully, thankfully, each child has a place and a name in the shining darkness. I heard that it takes six months to read all those names.

The following Tuesday night at 8 pm, the siren sounded again. It heralded the start of Yom Hazikaron [Remembrance Day], just as the taxi driver had said it would. All the shops were closed for the next 24 hours. Not for the Holocaust now, but to remember Israeli soldiers who died in the six day war of 1967. My Jewish neighbour told me, "Everyone knows someone who died."

Oliver and I went outside in the darkness that night, and stood at attention for the siren. All of a sudden Oliver said, "I'm going to smell the red rose" (it does have a most beautiful perfume!) He ran off down our path. As he went, it occurred to me that, like my boy, this country of Israel is still very young. In dark remembrances they have hope. They believe the best is yet to come! That is what they fight for. That's why they have soldiers everywhere. In this ancient part of the world, they are just starting out, and it seems exciting.

Old light shines new

Thus the tears of Remembrance Day lead straight into the cheers of Independence Day, to Yom Haatzmaut, commemorating Israel's establishment. From half-mast flags and mourning they progress to full-out firework celebrations when the sun sets and a new day begins! The prime minister makes a speech at Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum, on that Wednesday evening, and as soon as he's done, the land undergoes a transformation, from death to life! The new day has arrived! There truly was dancing in the streets, and loud, lively singing.

Walls and guards sound familiar

I thought back to the fighter jet and siren. This one week had marked the long journey of the past hundred years. Seven days after holocaust remembrance, the Jews of Israel dance! They have a place and a name now that goes far beyond a museum, beyond a memory. They have a country they can call "Home".

As with any good home, may this, like Abraham's home, be a place of hospitality and grace, where all are welcome and God can eat and drink with people.  Shalom, Israel.