Anne Frank's memorial in the forest

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In the final hour of daylight my town's touring group just made it to Ya'ar HaKedoshim, the Holocaust Martyrs Forest.

On the path leading to the new (2011) memorial to Anne Frank were signposts quoting her famous diary.

"The memorial is a sculpture created by designer Piet Cohen, and is the form of a room made of rusted steel. In the corner of the structure sits an uncomfortably high stool, from where the viewer can see an engraved image of the famed chestnut tree which Anne Frank wrote about so lovingly in her diary. The viewing experience is meant to recreate the feeling of imprisonment, isolation and discomfort while looking longingly through a window at the world outside." *

If you are ever in the Jerusalem Hills, look for this sign and follow it into the forest.
It is a moving experience.

* For  very interesting details about the Anne Frank Memorial Park and about the Martyrs Forest with  its six million trees, please see the Jewish National Fund/Keren Kayemet page
http://www.kkl-jnf.org/people-and-environment/kkl-jnf-projects-partners/dfu-2012/holocaust-martyrs-forest-anne-frank-memorial/
especially now, just a day after Yom Hashoah.
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Yom Hashoah in Meitar

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Yom Hashoah, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, began last night.
In my small town the main commemoration began in the basketball hall.
It was packed; everybody showed up; some had to sit on the stairs or the floor or to stand.
Seven plain white silhouette human figures were evident in the background.
The message written on the wall was our imperative to somehow draw out the lines of their faces, i.e. not to see the victims as "THE six million," but rather as six million individual faces.

And while the presentation went on -- candle lighting by several survivors, prayers, a psalm, songs, a dance, readings -- all the while artistic high school students were indeed sketching in faces and clothing.
See the difference between the first and second photos?  Quite amazing, and very moving.

The talented and serious youth were in charge of the commemoration.
What a blessing they are.

In closing we all stood and sang Hatikva, feeling especially grateful to now be living in our own free and strong country.
Let us remember the lost generations in Europe who went before us.
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Beer Sheva's Holocaust Memorial

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The United Nations decided that January 27, the day on which Auschwitz was liberated, should be the International Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Israel has its own day, in the spring, to remember the Shoah.

This is Beer Sheva's memorial square "to remember the victims of the Holocaust."
The four words written in Hebrew are from the Book of Esther 9:28 and mean
"Their memory will not fade from their descendants"
or in a different translation,
"The memorial of them should not perish from their seed."
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Remembering

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Cut down, burned. 
But following the conflagration, all around, tiny green pine saplings push their way out through the ash and grow toward the sun.
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Today marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
It is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
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More posts about the Shoah can be found here.
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Zachor -- remember

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Even the benches record sad memories in this area of Yad Vashem overlooking Jerusalem.

Yad Vashem this year is putting a special focus on the fate of Hungarian Jewry, “a tragic example of the swift and ruthless efficiency of the Germans and their local sympathisers during the latter period of the war.”

Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day 2014

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Yom Hashoah  began Sunday evening and continues on Monday.
A heavy day in Israel.
This year the central theme is 
Jews “On the Edge”
1944: Between Annihilation and Liberation

Dr. Dina Porat, Chief Historian of Yad Vashem, writes

 Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance
Day 5754 (2014) is marked by the situation of
the Jews in 1944 – exactly 70 years ago. The
expression “on the edge," taken from Nathan
Alterman's poem “Joy of the Poor," very aptly
expresses the feeling which prevailed that year
among the Jews of Europe, who were in the
throes of a double race on which their very lives
depended. On the one hand, cities from east to
west, such as Vilna and Minsk, Warsaw and
Riga, Belgrade and Sofia, Paris and Rome, were
being liberated from the yoke of Nazi Germany;
the Red Army was advancing, and the western
Allies continued to bombard Germany, their
landing in Normandy tipping the scales still further. 
On the other hand, in the same year,
the Jews of Hungary were sent to Auschwitz,
the Lodz and Kovno ghettos were liquidated,
the last of their former inmates were deported
and murdered, and death marches were initiated
from the liberated territories to the heart of what
remained of the “Third Reich.” It was a year in
which everything depended on the scales of
time, and the Jews remaining in Europe were
asking themselves: will the Red Army from the
east and the Allies from the west arrive before
the Germans come to murder whoever is still
alive? Or, as Alterman wrote, which ending
will come first? Events were occurring fast,
one after the other, raising serious questions
in their wake. . . . 

Dr. Porat's essay continues here, in the Yad Vashem Jerusalem Quarterly Magazine 
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See also some short Yad Vashem videos for the memorial day.
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"Remembrance and Beyond"

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"Remembrance and Beyond"

How do you like this logo of The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme?

Today 54 of our 120 Members of Knesset were in Poland for the memorial ceremonies of  the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

Then Steven Spielberg and a woman who was one of Schindler's Jews  gave  moving talks at the United Nations. 

All this was watched live on TV and Internet in the comfort of my own little apartment in the comfort of my own little State of Israel. -- How lucky I am. 

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UPDATE April 29, 2025:

Read this new article about Mr. and MRS. Schindler:  

https://frankfurt.de/de-de/aktuelle-meldung/meldungen/bahnhofsvorplatz-heisst-jetzt-emilie-und-oskar-schindler-platz/

יום הזיכרון הבינלאומי לשואה

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The entrance into the Holocaust History Museum at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem.

The triangular building is cantilevered at its beginning and at the end.
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In 2005 the United Nations designated January 27 as an annual International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

At the very first U.N. Holocaust Memorial Day in 2006, Israel's Prof. Yehuda Bauer delivered the "Remembrance and Beyond" keynote address at the United Nations.
He concluded his speech thus:

I come from a people that gave the Ten Commandments to the world.
Let us agree that we need three more, and they are these:
thou shalt not be a perpetrator;
thou shalt not be a victim;
and thou shalt never, but never, be a bystander.

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(Linking to Our World Tuesday and  Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Yad Vashem, meaning

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The siren blared at 10:00 this morning, and everything and everyone in Israel stopped and stood silently for two minutes.
Yad Vashem, the Knesset, schools, and TV all had heart-wrenching ceremonies, speeches, and testimonies for Yom HaShoah, the day of remembering the Holocaust victims, heroes, and survivors.
UPDATE:  See a video of the siren and streets.

Did you ever wonder where Israel's Holocaust memorial's name comes from?
I noticed this sign for a little 1928 synagogue in Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem some years ago, and it was an Aha! moment.
It  quotes "Vanatati lahem beveiti uvchomotai  yad  vashem."

So, I found the verse comes from Isaiah 56:5, where God says

I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument [yad] and a name [va-shem], a monument and a name better than sons and daughters;  I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Everyone should spend some time at Yad Vashem.

The little synagogue with the marble sign is for the Jews of Yanina.
Wiki helped me with this one:
"According to oral folklore Jewish communities inhabited the site of the modern [Greek] city of Ioannina [or Yanina] as early as 70 C.E.
. . .  There was a Romaniote Jewish community living in Ioannina before World War II. The Nazis deported the majority of them (1,860) to concentration camps during the final months of German occupation in 1944.
Almost all of the people deported were murdered on or shortly after 11 April 1944, when the train carrying them reached Auschwitz-Birkenau."
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(Linking to Signs, Signs meme.)
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יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה

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Sunday today, and I add my post to those of other blogger-Psalms-illustrators at Robert Geiss' PsalmChallenge.

This evening and tomorrow Israel commemorates יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה
"Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day"  or Yom Hashoah.
When I moved to Israel, 23 years after the Second World War, young Israel's entire (Jewish and Arab) population was only 2.5 million.
This year, 2013, my country  is home to  6,000,000 Jews.
Just a thought, remembering the 6 million who never knew a State of their own.

Psalm 98

Praise the Judge of the Worl

¹ O sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvellous things.
His right hand and his holy arm
have gained him victory.
² The Lord has made known his victory;
he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations.
³ He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the victory of our God.

⁴ Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
⁵ Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody.
⁶ With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord.

⁷ Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who live in it.
⁸ Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy
⁹ at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.
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Translation: New Revised Standard Version

Photos: 
Both photos are from the website  Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart DFG-Viewer

where the manuscript pages  can be enjoyed in high resolution.

The Stuttgart Psalter was created in France in the years 820-830.

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They made music in hell

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It was disconcerting to suddenly come upon this ensemble in the upscale Mamilla Mall last week, as part of an otherwise upbeat Musical Instruments sculpture exhibition.

But it seems more appropriate today because Israel is right now observing Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The official name is Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day and this year's theme is Hayachid vehayachad--My brother's keeper: Jewish solidarity in the Holocaust.

This sculpture's creator is Dr. Martin Kieselstein, who survived five Nazi concentration camps but lost his entire family.
He remembers the Jewish musicians who had to play music at the gate of Auschwitz as the forced laborers went out to work every day.
The artists says that the music gave hope to the prisoners, raised their spirits, and strengthened them.
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From the viewpoint of the SS, however, "The orchestra’s primary task was to accompany prisoners marching to and from work, so that the marching rhythm would allow ease of control over the prisoners. "
So it says in a very interesting page about "the elaborate musical scene" at Auschwitz at holocaustmusic.ort.org.

The first prisoner orchestra began in 1941 and grew to a hundred--they were non-Jews, mainly Czechs, Soviet POWs, and Polish intelligentsia and resistance members.
The articles says "The orchestra had a high turnover rate. In addition to the generally high death rate in Auschwitz -- musicians were not freed from their daily labour assignments -- there was also a high suicide rate, due perhaps to the emotional pressure of the context. "

It was only in October 1944, when mass transports removed large numbers of non-Jews from the camps, that they were replaced by professional Jewish musicians.
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"Some SS officers employed individual ‘musical slaves’, who were required to play or sing whenever commanded to. One such prisoner was the Italian tenor Emilio Jani, whose memoirs are titled My Voice Saved Me. Another was Coco Schumann, who recalled years later that

The music could save you: if not your life, then at least the day. The images that I saw every day were impossible to live with, and yet we held on. We played music to them, for our basic survival. We made music in hell."

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Raoul Wallenberg, of blessed memory

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I saw this plaque tucked away in a little garden at the Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus.
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Friday, January 27, many in the world mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day (although Israel's Yom HaShoah is in April).

This year, 2012, many countries and especially Hungary are having events to commemorate the 100th birthday of Raoul Wallenberg.

The young Swedish diplomat was posted in Budapest in July 1944, four months after the Nazis marched into Hungary
In the space of a few months he managed to save 20,000 Jews from deportation and from the Hungarian nationalist socialist Arrow Cross by issuing Swedish diplomatic papers and establishing “safe houses” throughout the city.

Raoul Wallenberg was taken into custody by the Soviets on January 17, 1945 and was never heard from again. He was 32.
His disappearance remains a mystery.
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A day to remember

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Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day is being observed in Israel, from yesterday's sunset until sunset tonight.

Yad Vashem has built a new cantilevered museum.
The skylight roof of the museum sheds light on the dark history of the Shoah exhibited in the long, mostly underground building.

After walking through the chilling exhibits, silent visitors come out of the tunnel-like structure into the fresh warm air of an open porch overlooking the living Jerusalem Hills.
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Only 208,000 Holocaust survivors are left in Israel, and an average of 35 of them die every day.
This makes it even more important to listen carefully to their story today, while we still have living witnesses.
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Across the valley

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From sunset to sunset it has been a long and heavy day. The Holocaust memorial day always is.

All these buildings spread out on Mt. Herzl are Yad VaShem, Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.
From the looks of the crane, they are adding even more to it.
An impressive aerial photo is at their website.
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I wish there had never been a reason to build such a memorial place.

But my world today, for That's My World Tuesday, was not only the sadness of Yad VaShem and Auschwitz and Yom HaShoah.

I stood at the highest point of Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood to take the first photo. If you turn the camera a quarter turn to the right, this second picture is what you see.
Hadassah Medical Organization, a place of healing, teaching, and learning!
And on the hilltop beyond the hospital--my moshav, a place of new life for the new immigrants who founded the village in 1950!
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O the Chimneys

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The siren just now sounded for Holocaust Heroes and Martyrs Remembrance Day.
The shorter, blunter name we usually call this day is Yom HaShoah.

When I lived in Switzerland as a volunteer, this was the view from my window.
It is nothing more sinister than an incinerator that burns people's garbage in order to heat their water.
But there at the foot of the Jura Mountains, I discovered that my sense of the Jewish collective memory is strong and unavoidable.
I could never see the smoke and the chimney without being reminded of Nobel Prize winner Nelly Sach's poem "O the Chimneys."
Here are its opening lines:
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O die Schornsteine
Auf den sinnreich erdachten Wohnungen des Todes,
Als Israels Leib zog aufgelöst in Rauch
Durch die Luft –
.Oh those smokestacks
Above the abodes of death, so ingeniously devised,
When Israel’s body, dissolved into smoke, was drifting
Through the air--

(translated by Reinhold Grimm)
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The entire poem, in German and English, appears in the book German 20th Century Poetry.
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