THERE WON'T BE ANY MIRACLES TODAY

Wednesday, July 8th

Today I spent the day at Yad Vashem, Israel's Museum of the Holocaust.  It was a lot of exhibits with video presentations beginning with the start of Nazism in the late 1920's through the settlement of the survivors in pre-statehood Israel.  They had everything in great detail and it felt like a regular museum until I walked into a room and had to walk under the arched gate of a death camp.  The gate had a sign that said "arbeit macht frei" meaning "work will make you free" in German.  Before I walked under the arch I realized the floor felt strange under my feet.  I looked down and I was walking on a brick street and I was in the middle of a  set of railroad tracks.  The effect was both dramatic and frightening.  That was the point in the exhibits where you saw pictures and videos from survivors of the death camp experience, many of the video testimonies were collected by Steven Spielbergs Shoah Foundation.  The attached pictures were all taken at Yad Vashem.   Outside, the German cattle car on the tracks that ended abruptly was a very moving sight.

 No photographs were allowed in the museum.  The following photo is of a placque in the Garden of Remembrance honoring some 31,000 non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust.  It is a pleasant surprise to see that The Ford Foundation is a supporter of Yad Vashem.

Peace,

Vic