The Gandel Holocaust Studies Program for Australian
Educators is the reason I have the opportunity to spend my summer holidays in
Europe and the Middle East. The scholarship I received has funded the majority
of this experience. The program – especially the course work at the Yad Vashem
Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem - allows an intensive exposure to education and
commemoration of the Shoah. I’m looking forward to having access to the
enormous quantity of resources that exist at Yad Vashem, and to presentations
by eminent researchers in the field of holocaust education, and the insight of
a number of survivors as they recall their experiences.
My first exposure to the Holocaust came through reading “The
Diary of A Young Girl” by Anne Frank and “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom
when I was in primary school – maybe nine or ten. There was a resurgence of
interest through the HSC Modern History national study of Germany, and teaching
the HSC Standard English close study – “Briar Rose” by Jane Yolen, but it was
not until Monday 21st December 2009 that my abnormal interest in the Holocaust
really commenced. This interest can be traced to my first visit to Yad Vashem,
which retrospectively was one of the most significant days of my life.
An account of that afternoon visit is contained herein.
Cultural-shock moment: When I studied Germany as a modern history unit, or covered
the holocaust as part of “Briar Rose” with 12 Standard, they were from outsider
perspectives. The museum was from a Jewish perspective, and while I knew a lot
of the information already, this different, and deeply affected viewpoint, made
the information even more engaging.
Something I want to remember: The number of folders in the Room of Remembrance in the
Museum. There were close to 5000, each with data about the known victims of the
Holocaust. Or the Children's memorial, which was all dark (we had to follow a
guide rail so we knew where to step) but had a candle somewhere, and within the
room was glass at angles so that the candles reflected 1 500 000 lights in the
room, one for each of the children who perished during that time.
+++++
(Yad Vashem) was located on a large block of land in the
outer city, and there were many trees around, making it a beautiful sunny
afternoon visit. We weren't permitted to enter the museum until a designated
time (it was a busy place) so we first went to look at a garden which
commemorated the “Righteous Gentiles”, those who at great personal risk saved
Jews during the Holocaust. Many of the trees were planted by those people
themselves, though obviously not all of them. There was one or two for various
branches of European royalty, and I recognised Oskar and Emilie Schindlers',
but none of the other names that I saw were recognisable. Apparently there is a
tree for Corrie ten Boom and her family too but I couldn't find it.
We then stepped through the garden and into a
different part of the grounds to the Children's memorial. I described that
earlier, and it was powerfully affecting. We could then enter the main part of
the museum, which was designed to be a chronological approach.
It started with footage of Jewish families in Europe in the
1920s, then into the rise of Nazism, the first racial discriminations,
Kristallnacht and then later into migration schemes, the outbreak of war, the
ghettos, rebellion movements, underground reporting and lifestyle of Jews,
concentration camps, extermination camps, Final Solution, responses from other
nations, Victory in Europe and the impact on those involved and the Jewish
community. It finished with the enormous room that housed the lists of the
known victims of the Holocaust and led into a research centre. The museum was
excellent and I really appreciated the curatorship of it. The rooms were well
ordered and there were oral accounts as well as all manner of primary sources.
It was the sort of place you could spend a full day in if you were to read
everything. We had almost two hours in the museum at our own pace and I really
relished it, and appreciated the effort and sensitivity within how it was
presented.
There was plenty of horrific information and accounts in
there – how could there not be – and I did know an awful lot about it, but to
see the primary remains, such as the end part of the rail line from Auschwitz,
and publications of banned books, spoons and uniforms from concentration camps,
confiscated treasures, letters sent from family expressing their concern at
people disappearing, the Ghetto monopoly game and photographs of the mass
burials (which are even more tragic now that I know more about Jewish beliefs
concerning burial rites) etc was something I treasured. I would come back to
Israel just to visit this museum again.”
Rather prophetically, the legacy of my first visit
produced what is now my third visit to Israel and to Yad Vashem. Indeed, both
visits have been made with Yad Vashem as the primary destination in mind,
several days of visits to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
(Washington DC) and my own determination to teach Holocaust related texts or
subject matter at school whenever possible. In 2015 I like to think I did a
pretty awesome job of it, and it seems that the scholarship interview panel
rather agreed.
I knew after the first visit in 2009 I would need a day
or more to see Yad Vashem in the future. My 2013 visit which was an entire day
at the Museum allowed me to see more of the exhibits around the grounds, but I
still didn’t finish. I hope that 18 days – 14 of them spent at the Museum –
will be enough to satiate my desire to experience all the place has to show and
to teach me.
I find the subject matter of the Shoah intriguing, and
heartbreaking and incredibly important to communicate to my students. They are
always so interested in it and I try to create an empathetic understanding when
discussing the material. I found that studying the material in a classroom
environment as past of my Masters unit was very intellectually stimulating, and
I love to learn. I have no doubt that the intensive visit to Israel will
produce enduring and influential learning experiences, which will be
supplemented by my earlier visit to Germany and to the Dachau Concentration
Camp.
Several days of frivolity in between these sobering
experiences will be found in my tour of numerous Christmas Markets in Germany,
Austria and Hungary, and in my Christmas break in Jerusalem where I will
traipse through the alleyways of the old city and revisit some of my favourite
places in the world.
While this
blog will take a different form to Sojourns in Antiquity on occasion –
this one won’t be used as the basis for an assessment task and is intended more
for pleasure - I will be generally following the style and format I adopted
there. Plus this time I have Derek!
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