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In summer 2011, I was selected to represent the organization that I was working with, to attend a course on Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem University, Israel. In collaboration with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yad Vashem had initiated a program for educators, with an aim of integrating Holocaust and Peace Studies in International curricula. The cohort consisted of educators from Poland, Serbia, Macedonia, Czech Republic, Mexico, Canada, America and of course, India. While preparing for my travel, I was so intrigued by what lay ahead, because I really didn’t know what to expect. The conflict between Israel and Palestine was ongoing, and the organization that I worked with, supported and empathized with Palestine’s situation. I was wondering whether there would be space for discussions and debates, and how it would all unfold in the next few weeks.

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On reaching Jerusalem, I was struck by the splendor, simplicity and mystic vibe of the city. There is a law in Jerusalem that directs all buildings to be constructed with Jerusalem stone to maintain uniformity. The entire city is thus, immersed in beige, brown and white, giving it an unusual and riveting appearance, a sight I have never seen anywhere else in the world, yet. We all stayed at Prima Kings at King George Street, which was walking distance from the Old City and Mammilla Avenue that was engulfed with restaurants and shops. It was a 15-minute bus ride away from Yad Vashem University. On the first night, we all got an opportunity to meet and interact with our cohort and organizers. A wife and husband, namely Stephanie and Ephraim were our mentors through this journey and would acquaint us with different facets of the Holocaust. It was remarkable to learn about all the different people, their respective stories and their involvement and passion as educators.

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The next three weeks that followed were action-packed. Through the days we were engaging with faculty from Yad Vashem getting introduced to erudite worldviews, and the evenings and weekends were spent exploring Israel expansively. The very first lecture was on God, Jews and History. 4000 thousand years of history was traced back to the time of Moses and insight was shared on the significance of Torah and the Bible in Judaism. For me personally, it was quite an intimidating lecture because I observed that the presence of God in the universe, people’s heart and mind was absolutely unquestioned. His/her existence from the time of Moses was taken as a fundamental truth of life. Conversations that ‘may’ or ‘may have not’ happened with ‘God’ were the foundation of how people have shaped their life and the nation. The declaration of Jews being the ‘chosen people’ and God giving them a ‘promised land’ was deeply embedded in how the history of Jews began and how it is continuing today with the perception of the land of Israel. On asking the professor what the Jew community would have to say, if a Jew child proclaimed herself to be an atheist, he simply replied by saying that even an atheist remarks  “Thank God, I’m an atheist”, which was quite restricting in it’s explanation.

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There was a lecture on ‘Jew, Judaism, Anti-Judaism in the Ancient World’ that delineated the chronological order of historical events that have taken place in Jerusalem. As a snippet, King Solomon in 957 BC built the first temple. The Babylonians, however, destroyed it in 425 BC. The Jews were exiled for 52 years after which they came back and built the second temple. The Persians, followed by the Greeks, and then, finally the Romans, invaded Jerusalem. The Romans destroyed the second temple. Subsumed within ‘Judaism and Anti-Judaism in Medieval Christianity”, the professor highlighted defining characteristics of the Medieval Jew. Through pictures and visual art, he elucidated how Christianity had victimized Jews. He used two specific pictures to maintain his argument. Firstly, a Jew under the left arm of Christ and secondly, Pigs being represented as Jews. The importance of Yiddish Literature in the inter–war period was established in ‘Literary Antecedents to the Holocaust’, as many of the recorded narratives of Jew at that time were in the Yiddish language. Yiddish is considered to be similar to German. Through the discussions, a key aspect I kept mulling over was the educational philosophy underlying Holocaust studies and content that could be introduced in an age-appropriate space, employing various methodologies to address issues and have in-depth debates to develop critical perspectives. 

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We visited the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem, which has a collection of artifacts and testimonies that describe what really had happened from 1939-1945 in different parts of Europe. It’s a thoughtfully designed museum and everything from the descending passageway where we enter from to the light at the end of the tunnel has integral significance attached to it. There are eleven exhibition halls and barriers in the pathway ensuring that everyone walks through the eleven exhibition walls. It was horrific to see the pictures and read about some of the stories that were evidence to the struggle that Jews underwent during this period. There are no words to explain the monstrosity of the event; it leaves you shell-shocked and shaken. More than a number of 6 Million, there is a face, a story to each individual and family and there is unbelievable disbelief at how we humans have the capacity to be so malevolent. To juxtapose our egregious beings and kindle a ray of hope for humanity, the museum also holds records of individuals who had extended a helping hand and assisted the Jews to escape or go into hiding. There is a Hall of Remembrance and Garden of Righteousness at Yad Vashem. We were fortunate to be able to attend the memorial service of a Polish couple who had taken in a Jewish Child during the war and the nephew of the couple was commemorated at the ceremony.

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The most powerful experience of the entire course was being able to meet with survivors and hear their personal testimonies. It was unnerving, to say the least. The numbers that had been tattooed as identification marks still remained on their arm as a harsh reminder of what reality had been. It had been shared with us that often times while narrating their experiences, the survivors got detached from the current audience and within their mind, returned to re-live the horrors of what they had experienced. It could even result in incessant nightmares and no sleep for days together. Immense support was needed to rehabilitate each person and with deep love and care ensure that the survivors knew that they were safe and protected. One of the survivors, Hana Pick, recounted her close relationship with Anne Frank, which left me in tears.

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I was taking back videos of survivor testimonies so that I could share this paramount human experience with the students and teachers. Yad Vashem has abundant resources at the learning center and it includes innumerable questions related to the holocaust with viewpoints and responses collected from a diverse range of professors, scholars and intellectuals who share their speculations on ‘Where was God during the holocaust’? Or ‘Would the holocaust have happened if it wasn’t for Hitler’? It entails everything in terms of educational resource materials, lesson plans, books and films that could be used as references.

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The exploration of the city was ongoing and we were simultaneously learning about the geographical and political aspects of Jerusalem. Sitting on the Mountain of Olives, I witnessed the spot where Christ had apparently stood 2000 years ago. From here, we could view the stone of rock, a golden dome, which is considered to be the place from where the universe was created. God was present inside the vacuum space and since God is infinite, God could not be contained within the limited area and so there was an explosion – a big bang, and thus, the universe was formed. Another landmark is the Tomb of Prophet Samuel. From this point, we could see parts of Palestine, where Arabs reside. In 1948, when Israel and Palestine were created, Jordan seized certain parts of Jerusalem, including parts of old city. In the year of 1967, when Israel and Jordan went to war, Israel managed to regain its land in Jerusalem. The old city is antiquated and charming. It currently, has a sound and light show that showcases the history of Israel and a shook that has an interesting amalgamation of souvenirs and performers.

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The Jewish, Christian and Armenian quarters co-exist. The western wall is the only wall left of the plaza that surrounded the second temple and is considered the most sacred and spiritual wall for the Jews. Out here, one can see the dome of rock from close proximity as well as where the first and second temple had originally stood. Now, there is a mosque, which was built when the Arabs came in the 7th century to Jerusalem. It’s a religious place for the Christians as well because this is where Christ was stripped, crucified and buried. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we saw where Christ’s bones and ashes had been placed, and thereafter, from where he resurrected. As we walked through the streets, we saw an imprint of Christ’s hand when he was dragging the cross to his execution by the Romans. We also visited Nazareth to see the Churches dedicated to Mary Madeline and Joseph respectively. From the Jordan River we took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee / Tiberius, where Jesus had apparently walked and stopped at Capernaum, located on the Northern Shore of the Sea of Galilee.

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Towards the southern part of the country, Masada and the Dead Sea are located. Masada is located on top of a rock and overlooks the Sea. It’s extremely high up and we had to take a cable car to reach there. It was fortified by Herod the Great and is simply grandeur. However, it has an extremely sorrowful story. When the first Jewish-Roman war culminated, the Roman troops sieged Masada and 960 people who were captured committed mass suicide. Being the peak of summer, it was exceedingly hot and on our way back, we cooled off with a dip in the icy cold waterfall. As we approached the Dead Sea, the temperature became even hotter because of the water’s specific heat capacity. I rubbed my body with the minerals and mud, and sat afloat reading a magazine and drinking a beer in the Dead Sea :)

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I experienced attending Shabbat prayers at the Synagogue. It was an orthodox Synagogue, so the girls had to sit upstairs, while the men were downstairs. A male priest performed the service. It was very different from a Church where the services are done in silence. At a Synagogue, there is endless movement, with people walking around, sometimes talking to each other and socializing. Everyone is dressed up to the hilt and it is seems to be more of a social event than a place of worship J The Shabbat dinner that followed after was glorious, I was in food coma for days to follow!

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At Tel Aviv, we visited the Hall of Independence where on 14th May 1948, David Ben Gurion declared the State of Israel. Having read Exodus, I was able to add a visual to my imagination of where the declaration of Independence had been signed. We also visited the Palmach Museum from where the Haganah group, the pre-state underground state organization had operated and was then, incorporated into the Israeli Defense Force in 1948. Many young people lost their lives in the process of attaining an independent state.

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Through the expedition, many questions and contentions emerged. For instance, this word faith is so heavily loaded. I fail to comprehend how humankind has spent most of their lives interpreting / misinterpreting texts and basing their choices, decisions and actions on ‘God’s message’. I feel that there is beauty in religion, which if channelized in the right direction can unify people, the very reason why religion surfaced in the first place. Unfortunately, it is often exploited for individual’s incessant thirst for power and manifested in extreme states of unquestionable fanaticism.

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Originally a Greek word, Holocaust, literally means ‘sacrifice by fire’. However, since the deaths of the 6 million Jews were far from a sacrifice, the Holocaust has been re-termed as ‘Shoah’, a Hebrew word that signifies complete meaningless destruction. A grotesque violation of human rights and the right to life, during the Shoah, the Jews were solely faced with ‘choiceless choices’. The decision of whether they would live another day, watch their family perish in a gas chamber, have their hair shaved off, lose their identity, be reduced to a mere number, was already made for them.  The context of studying and teaching the Shoah in the present day is to be able to inculcate and internalize values of tolerance, deference of each person’s human rights, being non-discriminatory and treating everyone equally in order to resist and contest the violence, hatred and fundamentalism that’s overtaking our world.

 

- Kamiya Kumar   

 

Highlights 

• Dead Sea

• Masada

• Mountain of Olives

• Western Wall & Western Wall Tunnel

• Nazareth

• Sea of Galilee/Tiberius