Friends:
I waited until now to write a comment or two about the most somber of all experiences we had in Israel so far. I couldn't write about "Shoah" (from the word "remember") in Hebrew, while drinking some wonderful Arabic coffee and enjoying the hospitality of Mr. Tabish. I can now more appropriately reflect on this atrocity and write a few words.
Obviously I knew enough about the Holocaust. Since my children were teenagers I started educating them about this. We watched numerous documentaries and read several books. But the experience of going through Yad Vashem (http://www.yadvashem.org/), even for a short one hour and a half is beyond belief. The original photographs, personal stories and effects; the music, the first person accounts on many videos, the somber ambiance, the feeling of being on the streets of Warsaw, inside a ghetto, all of this makes you stop and ponder "why?"
The answer, at least on one level, is that man has the propensity to the highest levels of good and the lowest degrees of evil. But this is not enough. The answer also has to touch on the power of sedition and manipulation. The answer has to hint at people seeking their own interest and trying to survive at the expense of their fellow human beings. The answer lies in the madness of one man and his loyal puppets. The answer points to the silence of those who had the power to disrupt this madness, if not stop it all together, but chose to look the other way.
In sum: the answer is multi-layered. We don't know all the detours people took in their thinking to arrive at the grand design to eliminate an entire group of people from the face of the earth. But we do know that in spite of their brute force and unrestrained sadism, the "final solution" was a colossal failure. The Jews keep on living, stronger than ever, whether one likes it or not. And they continue to fight for their own existence.
I stopped several times and cried as I walked briskly through the several buildings that comprise this museum. At times it was as if my emotions were trying to slow me down, as my body tried to move ahead. My mind was filled with the images of families with so many young people whose lives were cut short so soon. I imagined the bond, the love, the care and the tender embraces that ceased so abruptly and could never be retracted. I was struck with the determination of some group of young Jewish people who decided to record their experience through their art, poetry and diaries. I looked at their pictures and thought about the agony of painting what could be their last work or sketching the last portrait.
But I was also inspired by the courage of those who chose to resist and fought back. Had I been one of those living at that time, I hope I could have been numbered with them. Or better yet, had I been a gentile, I hope and pray that I was one who could be number among the "righteous" among the Gentiles. There were so few of them. What heroism but what tragedy.
One day God will right all wrongs, and that's how I want to end this post.
Pastor Ivanildo C. Trindade
P.S. As I write this post, Jews and their businesses are being targeted in looting in Kyrgyzstan... Such is the nature of the human heart.
P.S.S. Please read this from Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), parts of which are quoted on one of the exhibits in the museum:
"When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."
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