Synopsis of day: A final visit in Jerusalem.
Biblical Connections: It was called the citadel of David but that was only because the Jews seemed to be Herod “Baby Killer” the Great haters, and to name something after him because he built it was less de rigeur (Herodium the apparent exception to the rule).
Highlight of the day: The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.
Lowlight of the day: Discovering a section of Jerusalem on Jaffa Rd which was very shop friendly, walking distance and which would have been awesome to find out about much earlier than our last night!
Favourite quote/word: From one of the walls in Yad Vashem. “Under the circumstances, Australia can do no more... as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one”
Australia's delegate to the Evian Conference, T. W. White, July 1938. This was in response to a call to increase Jewish migration, and I think amply reveals the rose coloured view of Australia's race relations. The irony is enormous.
Favourite photo:
Clouds and old buildings. What's not to like?
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.
New food consumed: McDonalds thickshake, Israeli style!
Favourite purchase: A guidebook for the Yad Vashem museum. I enjoyed and appreciated the museum too much not to.
The thing I lost today: A sizeable portion of my purchases, which I posted home! Also we found the missing swipe card. KERRI HAD IT!!!!
Random act of crazy: The multiple security checks. Even to go into Maccas!
What Arthur did next: Ignored time schedules and stayed on at the citadel of David.
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.
This day was more fascinating than I had anticipated. We started off with an overview of where we had been with a panoramic view from the top of the Mount of Olives, this time in daylight, and this time there was a camel there which Mary and one of the few men on the group, Anthony, had a ride on. It was a spectacular day so I felt that we got some great shots, and this time, unlike other visits, we could place so many locations within the city.
Because we were going to the Holocaust museum later, and some people had expressed an interest, we ended up travelling to one of the Catholic cemeteries, where Oskar Schindler is buried. It is part of the Jewish tradition that rocks are placed on the top of a burial spot to prevent animals or other things which might disturb it from accessing it. His grave was littered with rocks, and was clearly more commonly visited than other graves.
After that our bus brought us near the Jaffa Gate which is my favourite of the entrances to the city. Right by it were the remains of the citadel of David, which as I mentioned earlier, was not actually built and used by him, but by Herod. The museum there has some sort of a sound and light program but we just walked through the museum at a cracking pace (I think Gila thinks we are supercharged and don't ever need breaks or time to digest information or reflect). This museum was interesting though because it provided an overview of Israel's history from Canaanite times until the creation of the state in 1948. I really liked seeing the medieval sections and the wing dedicated to the development of modern Israel. Sadly because this wasn't connected much to our coursework, we were raced through that section.
I didn't mind so much later in the afternoon though. Kerri had a headache and so elected to go back to sleep while the rest of us drove out of the old city and towards the memorial museum. It 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 musuem 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.
After we returned, we headed up to the post office and bundled up a stack of purchases (most of the weight for me was in resources I had obtained). We then walked around one of the street malls in Jaffa St and got security checked so many times it was bemusing. We also walked into our first Israeli McDonalds – while all the writing is usually in Hebrew, everyone speaks English so it's not too hard to get the orders through. Our final dinner was a very convivial one and we then spent the rest of the evening trying to pack our bags in preparation for a ridiculously nasty wake up time of 5am.
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