No trip to Israel is complete without a few things. Most of them are exciting and happy, such as eating falafel or singing countless Shabbat tunes with family. But some of the experiences one needs for a complete tour of the Holy are less joyous and more serious. For me, the most important part of a trip to Israel is a visit to Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust Museum, whose name translates to “Monument and Name.” The museum is not only a tour through the history of WWII, up to the liberation of the camps and displacement of the victims, but also a testament and memoir to the 11 million individuals, 6 million of them Jews, who perished in the Shoah.
Our tour took place at the very beginning of our last day in Israel, and even though I had already been to the museum about 2 years ago, I elected to take the same tour again, to see if there was anything I’d missed the time before. Something everyone seems to say about the museum is that there’s always something new you realize, something you forgot about, or something that really stands out that hadn’t before. This couldn’t have been more true during my second trip when compared to the first. I saw the museum from a new perspective, thanks to an experience I’d had during my school year at Hawken, which I’ll sum up briefly here:
In my Humanities 10 class this year, we had a brief unit on the Holocaust, which consisted of reading a short novel and a play about life before, during, and after the Holocaust for Jewish families. It wasn’t the subject matter that was upsetting me, but the way in which it was presented. Our teacher took a uniquely historical view of it all, and posed to us a very interesting question, one which I did not think was at all answerable:
“How did people like the Germans do such terrible things to the Jews? Weren’t they human too?”
I’d be lying if I said I’d never pondered this question before, but as I said, I didn’t think there was a single answer, so I sat back and let my classmates discuss. What I heard, however, disgusted me to the point of aggravation. They cited historical facts, including the loss of German power in the international world post WWI, the economic collapse, and many more, avoiding the philosophical problem at the heart of the discussion. How? How could humans kill other humans in this way? Weren’t they humans? I’d like to say that I kept my cool in this situation, but that just wouldn’t be true. I interrupted a short break in the conversation to share my thoughts, which were not yet fully formed, and essentially attacked the question, and the way it was being answered. There was not much time for my peers or teacher to react, as the class was almost over, but I stayed back for a while to discuss it further with our other teacher, who was more than happy to hear my thoughts.
I bring up this story because it explains how I went through the museum this time around, noticing the two stories to be told. In my opinion, the Holocaust is at its core a human story about people who did terrible things which cannot be explained in simple facts. Alongside this tragic story is a historical narrative which intertwines with its counterpart, creating many layers to the story which spans nearly a decade. I kept this idea in mind while we walked through Yad Vashem, and it truly opened up my eyes to a new story which I’d never considered before.