Nobody goes to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, to have a good time. You go there to respect the millions of people killed by the Nazis in World War II. You go there to witness just a little of the horror of man’s inhumanity to man. The hope is that we will learn from the past and not repeat it in the future. From the looks of things, humanity has not learned this lesson very well.
It’s always good to have a guide when visiting a site. It’s also very possible to get portable devises that can guide you through an exhibition. However, on this trip to Yad Vashem, I had the privilege to go with my friend Zipi Mizrachi whose family experienced the horrors of the Holocaust in both Poland and Hungary. Zipi had not been to the museum in twenty years. It’s just such a heart-wrenching experience for her. But, she wanted me to see the museum and learn a little of her story. As we passed through exhibits about the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz, Treblinka, and more, Zipi let me know which of her family members had been in the various locations.
Of course, we were not the only two to walk along the exhibition in silence. There were many young people from the Israeli Defense Force visiting that day. Zipi said they gave her such hope and inspiration. These young people were the future of her country as they walked through the memories of its past.
One of the first exhibitions dealt with Warsaw, Poland. The uprising of the Polish Resistance infuriated the Nazis. In 1944, the Nazi leaders decided to destroy the city in retaliation. Over a period of three months, Warsaw was demolished and 650,000 citizens were deported to a labor camp south of the city. In the exhibition at Yad Vashem, actual cobblestones, street car lines, and a lampstand from Warsaw were used to create the setting.
Top right: Street view of Warsaw Bottom: Entrance to Auschwitz with remnant of train car, Work Sets You Free
I instantly recognized the entrance to the exhibition about Auschwitz. There was an arch over the gateway to the death camp that read, “Arbeit Macht Frei”, which in English means, “Work Sets You Free”. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz was the largest of the German concentration and death camps. Prisoners were either gassed to death, worked as slave laborers, or experimented upon by Josef Mengele. It is estimated that 1 million people lost their lives in Auschwitz.
As an artist, I am inspired by artists in the concentration camps who felt the need to express themselves and document what they saw. There were harsh punishments if caught creating art that was not ordered by those in authority. That didn’t stop the artists from doing what artists do. Some drawings were hidden in secret locations while others were smuggled out of the camps into the outside world. There were also works of artists who survived the war and later created more art from their experiences. One such survivor, Henri Pieck, 1895–1972, drew the illustration of Jews pulling a wagon in 1945.
Art from Concentration Camp Artists
Words can be so very powerful. Quotes from survivors, journal passages, and newspapers shared the innermost thoughts of both the Nazis and those who were so oppressed.
The wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar. The trees look ominous, like judges. Here all things scream silently.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Babi Yar
We must annihilate the Jews wherever we find them, wherever it is at all possible, in order to maintain the whole structure of the Reich here [in Poland].
Hans Frank, Governor General of the Generalgouvernement, December 16, 1941
Anyone who could see the expulsion of Warsaw with his own eyes would have his heart broken. The Ghetto has been turned into an inferno … people are being hunted down in the streets like animals in the forest … hiding in nooks and crannies, in cellars and in attics … Their cries and wails tear the heart out. The children in particular rend the heavens with their cries.
Chaim Aharon Kaplan, diary, July 27, 1942
Faces of some of the Victim of the Holocaust in the Hall of Names
One of the most impactful parts of the entire museum was the Hall of Names. The placard reads, “The Hall of Names is the memorial entrusted with preserving the names of the Holocaust victims in perpetuity. The victims, almost all of whom did not receive a Jewish burial, bequeathed us the imperative to remember their names. Since its establishment, Yad Vashem has been fulfilling this testament by providing them a memorial and a name. The Hall of Names houses Pages of Testimony memorializing the names and biographical details of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. It is an ongoing effort to retrieve all of the names … of each man, woman, and child who was lost; an entire Jewish world that was obliterated.”
Visiting Yad Vashem is so very sobering. It is so hard to understand the horror. But for Zipi, there was light at the end of the dark tunnel. Both of her grandfathers survived the Holocaust, one in Hungary and the other from Poland fled into the Soviet Union. They married and had children. Their children had children. The grandfather from Hungary had 80 grandchildren! The one from Poland had over 130! It is the very best kind of revenge over the Nazis who tried to exterminate their entire population.