Last week, my section took a few days of from school in order to learn about the Holocaust. Throughout the seminar we would participate in a few workshops, lectures and went to Yad Vashem (my first time).
The seminar started with an opening ceremony planned by two of my peers who read a very emotional poem about a man who's family is full of Holocaust survivors. The author was a camp counselor of one of my peers and that immediately sparked an emotional connection.
Holocaust Survivor: A woman by the name of Rina came to speak to us. Her story was absolutely amazing. She was born in Pietrika, Poland and was about three and a half when she moved into the ghettos. When she was about five and a half, everyone in the ghetto was located to some sort of factory of concentration camp. The whole ghetto was brought to one area and a man told her to run. When she did, no on shot her and she just kept on running. That was the last time she saw her mom and two brothers (they were taken to Triblinka where they were gassed and then burned). She made it to the glass factory where her father worked and as a young girl she pretended to be a ten year old boy (anyone under the age of ten was not considered able to work). She has absolutely no idea how she got away with it. One day the factory was also collected and all of the members had to travel to the camps in a cattle car. It took them days and they received no food, no water and had only a bucket to relieve themselves. Once they finally got off the cars, she had to be separated from her father because she could no longer pretend to be a boy. Her father found a woman that he knew and made her promise to take care of his daughter. That woman became her mom. Rina was about seven at this time. She was then taken to the camp Birken Belsen where she stayed until the British liberation in April 1945. She was immediately hospitalized in Sweden because she had typhus and tuberculosis. There, she met a Swedish Christian family that wanted to adopt her and she eagerly agreed. She ended up going with a family to America instead and once she arrived there, was adopted by a family living in the Bronx and stayed with them forever. In 1981, she went to Israel for the first time to attend a gathering for survivors of the Holocaust. She was hoping to be reunited with her family, but no one survived. She went to Poland in 1989 and there she found her birth certificate and her parents' marriage license. This woman is full of life and hope and just the sweetest person. I have so much respect for her and her story was incredible to listen to.
Seminar on the Kastner Trial: Before this class, I had absolutely no idea who Rudolph Kastner was (most people don't). When you think about a person who saved a thousand Jews in the Holocaust, most people immediately think of Oskar Schindler. But in reality there were so many others who did as well and did NOT have a movie made of them. Kastner was a Hungarian Jew who negotiated with one of the nastiest Nazis in history (Adolph Eichman) in order to save almost 1700 Jews. Indirectly through other deals, he managed to save about 20,000 in addition to the first 1700. Sounds great right? Well apparently once the war was over and he made Aliyah to the New State of Israel, he was accused of collaborating with the Nazis and being a big part of the Hungarian Jews who he didn't save. He was found guilty of these claims and a short time after that, was assassinated. The man who killed him spent about six years in jail and then was released. The court decision was in 1954 and in 1958 was overturned saying he was innocent. I have no idea if he's innocent or not but lets just say that if really was responsible for saving over 20,000 Jews then that's pretty cool.
Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum: Yad Vashem is Israel's Holocaust Museum and education center in Jerusalem. It's the biggest Holocaust museum in the world. I don't really know why but this was my first time there. A bunch of kids on my program have been there before, so there were three different tours. Because this was my first time, I took the general museum tour. Our first stop was the Garden of Righteous Gentiles. There, a tree is planted in the name of every Non-Jew who saved a Jewish life during the Holocaust (according to Yad Vashem's records). Once we got there, of course I searched for Oskar Schindler's tree.
Next, we went into the actual museum. The museum is organized into chronological order of the war. However, the beginning shows the liberation of the camps. They do this as a reminder of the outcome of the war and give the visitors some peace of mind. A luxury that the victims didn't have. So our tour guide (which sucked) took us through the museum from 1933 (start of the Nazi takeover) to 1948 (creation of the state of Israel). Although the tour guide was just not up to par, the museum really was. I have been to the Holocaust museum in Washington and the Museum of Tolerance in LA, but this was something else. It was so beautiful and well done that I want to go there again on my own and take it all in.
Some Picture and my favorite exhibits:
The Shoes (this is special because you are supposed to step on it and see your shoes with theirs):
Schindler's List:
Hall of Names:
Replica of the entrance to Auschwitz (it's still standing in Poland):
The most amazing part of the museum is the exit. This is because you just got so much information which is quite depressing and you walk out to this beautiful breathtaking view. And then you remember that the Germans lost and that we are in Israel!! The Jewish homeland!!!! There really isn't a better feeling than that.
A picture of my grandma and her mother at Yad Vashem:
Holocaust Denial Workshop: After the tour, we all went to different workshops at Yad Vashem. I chose Holocaust denial because I've never really learned much about the subject. I can't even believe that there are people in the world that deny the facts. Anyway, when I think Holocaust denial the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad immediately pops up in my head because he is probably the most famous of the deniers. However we didn't really talk about him, we discussed other random people in the world who don't believe that the Holocaust was a mass genocide and that 6 million people were really killed. We had the same woman speak to us from the tour. I hope to take another seminar about this topic again and go more into depth.
Holocaust through Film: The last seminar of the day was with my film teacher Rich. I probably shouldn't have taken this seminar because I am already in his film class and the seminar was kind of a shortened version of the course. But it's always a fun time with Rich so I still enjoyed myself.
The whole seminar was such an incredible experience and I'm really glad that Year Course organized this for us. I hope to return to Yad Vashem soon and see all of the exhibits I missed.
Never forget.
Never again.
