Yad Vashem

In Israel, Red Baron learned a Jewish slogan concerning the country's three big cities: Tel Aviv is for work, Haifa is for fun, and Jerusalem is for religion. Amen.

When an Israeli says Shana Haba B'yerushalayim (next year in Jerusalem), the words are highly symbolic, meaning a Jewish Jerusalem with the rebuilt Temple, the Sanhedrin*, and a Jewish Monarch.
*The Sanhedrin is the supreme council and tribunal of the Jews headed by a High Priest and having religious, civil, and criminal jurisdiction.

This blog is about Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial for the victims of the Holocaust, but before I give you my impressions, here is my memory of my visit to the Western Wall. This name is unknown in German, where the retaining wall of the Temple Mount is called Klagemauer (Wailing Wall). Following extensive security checks, Orthodox Jews and tourists alike may approach the wall in separate sectors for men and women.

Before I approached the Western Wall, I got hold of a kippa and asked the man at the kiosk offering Jewish prayer books whether he had any prayers in English. He said: Are you Jewish? I snapped back: It is the same God, isn't it? He flinched and started looking for something in English. Eventually, he returned with a Guide to a Healthy Planet for all Humanity, an environmental flyer where I found Noah's Seven Laws.

Eventually, my fellow travelers saw me davening in front of the Western Wall, although I was reading or studying the flyer and Noah's laws.

   

In Yad Vashem, the vice-director received the Freiburg group in front of the entrance to the Center. He gave a short introduction. Eventually, we entered and, on our way to the Holocaust Museum, walked along the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Memorial tree for Oscar Schindler and his wife

We also passed the Hall of the Eternal Flame.

The names of the concentration camps

The distribution of the Jewish population in Europe on the evening
of the Machtergreifung (takeover) by the Nazis in Germany.

Antisemitism all over Europe ...

... but the Nazis organized the perfect persecution of the Jews
aiming their extermination with the Endlösung

Many Jews left Germany and Europe in time, but not all of them were welcome.

Contemporary cartoon in the Daily Mirror

It was a brain drain for Germany! Most of the intellectuals below left for the States. The few examples do not show all the physicists who helped America build the atomic bomb.

The Nazis practiced racial defilement.

They established a few cities in Poland as Jewish Ghettos.
The expert on German literature, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, was one of the inhabitants.
After the war, he became the star of a television show: Das literarische Quartett. 
Marcel had a firm opinion on Ghetto cafés.

Labor camps were essential to keep war production up during the war.

Near the exit of the museum: The famous Hall of the Names

The harrowing memorial for the murdered children

The entrance

The children

One star for one murdered child

The photo of the cattle car memorial for the deported people
was taken at twilight time.

Evening atmosphere at Yad Vashem. Tomorrow there will be a new day.

Shalom. This blog winds up the reporting about my trip to Israel. 

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