Yad Vasheim

Our guide told us that she from a young age knew she wanted to something meaningful to extend the memory of the Shoah and this is what it became. I'm sure most of the guides are excellent but I prefer to believe we hit the best. We were also fortunate to be a very small group comprised only of our family and another of only 3. Unlike the other groups which were 20-30, we really had an intimate feeling.

I had not been to Yad Vasheim in many years. I believe that until I brought our frelatives (more on this term later on) to the d.c. Holocaust museum last fall, I had allowed myself to feel somewhat numbed to the holocaust.

Our guide stated a few times that the cynics of holocaust memorials and films like to say there is no business like Shoah business' yet, truly, the best business is what the Germans made from the Shoah. Looting Jewish possessions. Only G-d knows how many rings of gold remain in German families that were made from the fillings ripped from Jewish mouths before gassings and crematoriums.

Most holocaust survivors report that in the immediate decades after liberation, retelling the experience was too painful for it was as reliving the experience. As they rebuilt their lives by plowing full force ahead, giving testimony and recording these facts became a priority. There is an inevitability that someday soon, the few remaining survivors will join their loved ones in olam haba. Before this day arrives, much can be done to bring persons testimony to Jew and non-Jew alike.

It struck me that perhaps in a much less intense and reasoned manner, a person empowered to inspire Jewish children with hope and pride in the Jewish people, needs to focus more on the present victories and accomplishments than dwell educationally on the humiliation of the past.

Now I found myself in this place of disturbing horrific testimony. I myself nearly the end of my own 5th decade on earth, the time had appropriately arrived to focus again on the Shoah.

There is no sense in me recounting the mass of shoes or the locks of hair. There was far more than could ever be recalled just as there would always be more to see and experience in every visit.