What I Felt
Today we went to the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem: Yad Vashem. I'd like to share my experience with you, though I know there are no words to truly capture it. It was easily the most powerful, emotional, and meaningful experience I've had thus far on this trip and in my life.
I wish I could tell you more about the symbolism of the building's architecture, the historical significance we learned from our tour guide, and the many many original artifacts we saw. But there was too much to see, hear, learn, and feel. I can only tell you what I felt.
My eyes first welled with tears when I watched videos of survivors telling their stories, and when I read quotes of their experience in their own words: words so powerful and important, I repeated them in my mind while we walked through the museum so as to not forget them. They were words that people risked their lives to write and protect and remember.
Words like:
"I am calm now. I am prepared to die."
"There is no good and love in this world that can outweigh the suffering and injustice we experienced."
"They stood there with their arms crossed, they watched and they did nothing."
"Saving a Jewish life is more important than killing a German one."
"Be brave and strong."
In a dark room full of candles and mirrors, they read the names and ages of Jewish children who had died in the Holocaust. Each candle cast infinite reflections, representing the lost future generations that could have been; instead, each young life was cut brutally short by a hatred and tragedy that those children will never comprehend, that perhaps none of us will ever truly comprehend.
I stared into the flickering flames and cried the most meaningful tears I ever have cried. A quote from my favorite book, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, crossed my mind. In the post apocalyptic world, a son asks his father where the good in the world went. "Where are the carriers of fire? Where is the light?" he asks. His father replies "It is inside you. It was always there."
Wondering where the carriers of fire were for the Jews, I stepped out of that dark tragic room into the light outside. I tried to stop the shaking of my shoulders, the ache in my throat, the tears in my eyes. I am still trying now as I write this on the bus with everyone all around me.
One of our Israeli peers, an officer named Noa, came up and hugged me. I cried harder, worried only slightly about getting snot on her crisp, green uniform. To have such an emotional moment with someone who five days ago was a total stranger is a moment I will forever remember and forever be grateful for.
Shira is telling me now that it doesn't have to be this long, so I'd like to end with one last story. One of the videos in Yad Vashem was of an old man describing how they still managed to celebrate Passover in the camps. He was smiling the whole time he talked. He said "People often ask me, how can you smile?" He said "I think it saves me, to smile. I think if I didn't smile, I would cry endlessly."
Photo Credit: @daniellepatlak
