Yad Vashem

May 9, 2012

A pilgrimage visit to this land must include an opportunity to face the horrors that the first ‘People of God‘ have been subjected to throughout history, and especially in the twentieth century.

At the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem this tragedy is powerfully presented in exhibits, movie clips and text and image displays.

Seven million Jews were exterminated in a systematic project that is now considered to be one of the greatest horrors of all time.

While a superficial knowledge of twentieth-century history blames one German leader with a team of his followers, the reality rightly apportions a wider responsibility.

How is it that so many people around the world, and the leaders of so many nations, knowing exactly what was happening, remained silent in the face of this evil?  

As someone once commented ‘all that is required for evil to prosper, is that good people do nothing.’

The outdoor area of the hill-top museum is covered with twenty thousand trees; each tree representing one person who worked to save even one person from the Shoah.

This word ‘Shoah’ is used by the Jewish people (instead of the more commonly used ‘holocaust’) since it means simply ‘disaster’ or ‘tragedy’ rather than positively implying ‘sacrifice to a god’.

We began our visit with time wandering through these commemorative trees. A significant number of Jews were saved by those now named as Righteous among the Nations.  



The Children’s memorial is a powerful encounter with the 1.5 million children who were murdered in the Shoah.

Janusz Korczak was a Polish doctor who chose to support and save children , in the end accompanying a number of children to their tragic death, rather than to save his own life.  This sculpture commemorates his ultimate love:

Each of the 20.000 trees is named to remember one of the Righteous among the nations.

Oskar and Emilie Schindler‘s trees:

Photos are not taken in the museum itself. The pictures below are at the exit as the dimmed lighting of the museum interior opens to the brightness of day overlooking Jerusalem.


May these
and all who sleep in Christ
find in His presence
light
happiness
and peace

Amen

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts

stand up look up

stand up look up

The Israelites in their forty years in the desert were journeying from captivity to freedom, but the struggle of their desert years made them vulnerable to attack from every temptation as today’s first reading continues

confident in God

confident in God

I’m not sure if children today are told the great story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, but if not let’s make sure that the parable is taught at all schools of higher learning.

the teenagers

the teenagers

A few years ago I discovered the wonderful way that God uses my imagination in my prayer.
Such openness to imagination when seeking God does not take us away from reality into fantasy but instead brings me into what is most real and inescapably personal and intimate.

Annunciation

Annunciation

A couple of thousand years ago, a young Jewish woman was going about her normal morning routines, perhaps with a mixture of house and garden work, chatting with parents and neighbours, aware of the local drought, the sickness of a neighbour and annoyed by the neighbourhood’s lack of sleep caused by the Romans’ noisy party the night before, when God broke into her routine and entered her life in a new and powerful way.

the real centre

the real centre

Over the last month I have had the opportunity to work with many people across Aotearoa and further afield. In every retreat and seminar I have been with committed and faith-filled people who often feel as though they are on the periphery of the Church