Yad Vashem
Each day brings intensive learning. Visiting Israeli schools, there is much to see and experience, and upon which to reflect. Ultimately, we choose to bring back what we have taken in to share with our staff and communities. We know we are one big family living across the ocean, but do our staff and communities realize it?
So many things to think about, yet the image of walking down into the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum is haunting. I have been there before and felt quite faint the last time, so I am apprehensive about what will be as I enter the dark space lined with black and white photos. I sense the nausea that takes over me but try to ignore it and be present as I slowly make my way through the maze of evidence, the horror, lining the walls. I notice that there is a painting to the right- side on the upper corner - shades of brown and black of a young girl looking out of a window in her bedroom. I immediately recognize it, as it hangs in my own bedroom! My grandmother painted it and I wonder, what is the connection? What meaning did it have for her? I make a mental note to find out its significance. I always knew that it was different from all her other paintings as it lacks the usual optimistic colors of her art.
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| Sara's grandmother's painting hanging at Yad Vashem. |
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| Painting by Sara's grandmother, Haya Majerowicz, that hangs in Sara's bedroom. |
There is soft music in the space but no words other than those that can be read in the displays. People walk through, some are crying, all are glossy eyed with feelings they have inside them as each knows that this is truth. It happened, and many of have been affected by it. My nausea now turns to feeling faint. I have to lean against the wall. I look down as it is too difficult to witness the pain in the eyes of those that pass through the darkness. I think of my mother, only four years old at the time. Deception, confusion, fear, anxiety, sadness. How can a child who lives through this come out sane at the age of ten? She is broken, doomed to a life of pain and sadness. Her father and family have been wiped out. She can no longer giggle peeking from under her grandfather’s tallit on Shabbat. Yet, her mother, my beloved Savta, comes out full of life and optimism despite what she has endured to save her only child and rescue her only brother from a work camp. She is my hero. She is my role model. My cup is half full because of Haya Meyerowicz, a woman of strength and love who I have been fortunate to have in my life. My Polish Savta, living in Tel-Aviv, mutli- talented, bright, ever the social butterfly, with admiring people all over the world claiming her friendship, saves me. Her positive spirit helps to shape who I am. From the ashes there is also hope.
My throat starts to ache and I feel the tears rolling down my cheeks. I stop and find myself weeping for my mother, for my Savta, and for each soul that has been sacrificed. The children, so innocent. I have devoted my life to children, to education. I wonder if it is not by happenstance that this has been my life’s work? My reward is seeing children happy and thriving, learning and developing positive self-esteem. I am committed to ensuring that all adults, staff and caretakers, are part of what makes each child feel special as they are.
I hear my mind saying the words for the first time, “I am so sorry Mom and Savta, for the suffering you endured. You didn’t deserve it, no one did.” I cry without shame or guilt as I make my way to the light. As I come out of the chimney shaped gray walls my lungs fill with air. I am brought back to life with the sun warming my face. I breathe, I exhale loudly. I have survived and although I am shaken and weak, I am alive and full of hope. The Tanach states that each person should be happy in his share. We must all count and value the blessings in our lives. I feel blessed to be a part of an international family full of color, full of laughter, and full of love.
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| Standing in front of the Janusz Korczk Memorial at Yad Vashem |
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| Janusz Korczk was a well-known educator who authored many books about respecting the rights of the child. He ran an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto. Although he was given the opportunity to escape the holocaust alone, he chose to accompany the children to the concentration camps so they wouldn't be afraid. His educational legacy lives on in his writing and in the stories of surviving orphans who benefited from his care and teaching. |
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