Yad Vashem - Jewish Holocaust Museum

On Sunday the 20th we visited Yad Vashem. It is a museum funded by many but initially funded by an American Jewish couple.

The museum was built of concrete. It was set up like intestines. You had to wind your way through to the end where you were deposited into an area of bright sunlight and garden.

Here are some quotes from inside the museum:
"A country is not just what it does - it is also what it tolerates. "
Kurt Tucholsky, A German essayist of Jewish origins

5th Century Christians decided not to keep killing Jews but rather, to keep Jews in humiliation. St. Augustine said, "Slay them not, scatter them abroad." So much for Christianity and the "Saint" called Augustine.

"No one need be surprised if among our people the personification of the devil, as the symbol of all evil, assumes the living shape of the Jew." Adolf Hitler in the Sub Human Newspaper

April 1, 1933 boycott of Jewish owned stores in Germany
April 7, 1933 1st racial law against the Jews goes into effect

From Martin Niemoller, a German Pastor
First they came for the communists
but I didn't speak up because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the Socialists
but I didn't speak up because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the Jews
but I didn't speak up because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Homosexual
but I didn't speak up because I was not a homosexual.
Then they came for me
but there was no one left to object.

Some of the folks who fled Germany and were assimilated by other countries:
Albert Einsten
Sigmund Freud
Max Reinhardt
Herbert Marcue
Kurt Weill
Lisa Mertner
Stefan Zweig
Walter Bengamin
Theodor Adorno
Nelly Sachs
Franz Werfel

The only place in the Ghetto for the sick is Marysin (cemetary). Oskar Zinger's diary July 14, 1942

When one is hungry, but can't be hungry, he plays the trombone for the Germans.

The Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar
the trees look ominous like Judges
Here all things scream silently
Yevgeny Yeutushenko in Babi Yar

Most SS were young men in their 30's
2/3 rds were university educated
1/2 had doctoral degrees in law, economics, political science or philosophy.

"The Final Solution to the problem of the Jews is methodical campaign."

"The camp's law is that those should be deceived till the end going to their death."
Tadeusz Borowski

"All of us are dying here amidst the ice" Avraham Levite 1.3.1945
Artic indifference of the nations
are forgotten by the world and by life.

"I know that when I stand before God on Judgment day. I shall not be asked the question posed to Cain -where were you when your brother's blood was crying out to God?"
Imre Bathory. Righteous Among the Nations, Hungary

"Not yet alive, not yet dead" Isabella

"life under Nazi rule threw Jews into identity crisis"


This day is a day of sorrow for me, visiting a museum cataloging the initial indifference of the world to what the Nazi's did to Jews. It is unfathomable.

Ironically, this day my group and I are discussing how the state of Israel is initiating the same tactics against the Palestinian people as those initiated by the Nazi's against Jews. What we learn is that the Jews here believe that their take over of the land and the degradation of the Palestinians is permissible because of quotes like this from the Bible:

I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it declares the Lord. Ezekiel 37:14

This passage was prominently displayed above the driveway of the museum.

Frankly, and detestably to me, the Jews and Christian Zionists believe that because the Holy Land is destined for Jews to live, what happens to the Palestinians is God's vengeance upon them. God loves the Jews and promised them the land.

If life under Nazi rule threw the Jews into Identity crisis, just what happens to the identity (identities) of the Palestinians whose land, homes and livelihoods are taken? What happens to the Palestinians who are stripped of civil rights within their towns and country?

The only place for sick Palestinians today is the hospital (whose supplies are cut off by Israel) or the cemetery. Food, electricity and medical supplies are all cut off, just like in Nazi Germany prior to the "solution" of "extermination."

Rumi eight centuries ago, wrote:

The sadness i have caused any face
by letting a stray word
strike it,

any pain
I have caused you,
what can I do to make us even?
Demand a hundredfold of me - I'll pay it.

During the day I hold my feet accountable
to watch out for wondrous insects and their dwellings.

Why would I want to bring horror
into their extraordinary
world?

Magnetic fields draw us to light;
they move our limbs and thoughts.
Bit it is still dark
if our hearts do not hold a lantern,
we will stumble over each other,

huddled beneath the sky
as we are.


My Prayer today:
God
God of the Jew
God of the Christian
God of the Muslim
God of us all,
stop our warring madness.

Keep us from ghettoizing your holy people.
Keep us from ghettoizing ourselves from the pain of the world!

Keep us mindful of the light that shines in the midst of deep despair
how together with your Spirit, we can overcome the warring madness.

God of the Samaritan, Pharisee and Priest
in all of us,
unfold love from within our hearts -
un-wring us from the twisted mess we've made of life and love
shape us into the identity you bless us with - "beloved"
until the only orthodoxy available is our love of you.
Amen.