Today was sobering. I spent nearly all morning and well into the afternoon at
Yad Vashem, the world's leading Holocaust memorial, museum, and documentation center. The visit greatly heightened my appreciation of the country and its people. I had visited the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. and even the extermination camps in Germany, but this experience was quite shocking. Throughout the day it felt as if needles were constantly pricking my eyes as I listened and viewed with stunned horror the atrocities that had occurred to the Jewish people. There were so many things I had never heard or read.
The Children's Memorial was unsettling and shocking. Over 1.5 million children and babies were killed in the death camps. Inside the memorial it is completely dark, except for myriad pinpoints of light like stars, each representing the life of a child taken away. A ceaseless voice reads their names, places of birth, and ages.
It really is too hard to explain in this type of forum. Photographs are not allowed inside Yad Vashem, which makes it all the more difficult.
Afterwards, I visited nearby
Mount Herzl, the final resting place of Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement. Surrounding the large mountaintop area is the
Israeli War Memorial, where thousands of Israeli soldiers are buried and memorialized, as well as prominent Israeli figures including Levi Eshkol (Israel's third prime minister) and Golda Meir (Israel's fourth prime minister).
It started to rain slightly (the first rain since I've been here), which made the day seem all the more contemplative. As I left Mt. Herzl and Yad Vashem, I felt like I was in some sort of mental fog. I just couldn't believe what human beings were capable of doing to each other. I went back to the old city and just walked around the rest of the day. I caught bus 81 to the house, where I was pleased to be warmly welcomed with good company and another fantastic meal.
