Day 3 of our experience! Written by Rachel Kendal, Ari
Deller and Rebecca Ebner-Landy
Yesterday we all had a very emotional day. We visited the
site of Yad Vashem and each reacted in way that felt natural to us. To start
off the day we had a talk about why the Jews have been persecuted repeatedly
through history. We discovered that the reasons given for this persecution are
simply excuses.
Soon after, we traveled to Yad Vashem. We were lucky
enough to be told a story about an elderly holocaust survivor and a young man.
They met on a plane and discovered their
religious differences. After going their own ways they met again many years
later, only to discover they were father and son. This story made us feel uplifted
and hopeful.
The museum section of Yad
Vashem allowed us to gain an
extensive knowledge behind the horrors of the Holocaust. We watched accounts
from survivors of the concentration camps and these truly resonated with us. We
were overwhelmed by the numbers of Jews killed as the facts under the surface.
After lunch we heard a beautiful but deeply saddening story about a mother who
had to give her daughter away to save her from the final round ups. This
touched us because it made us think of our own family, our own mothers who if
we were born at a different time might have had to do this for us.
The memorial to the one and a half million children who
were killed was extremely emotional for all of us, as children ourselves. It
made us think of our families again. There were two candles which were
reflected by many mirrors. The sheer number of reflections represented the
children. Joseph, one of our new friends worked out that it would take a third
of a year to read out the names of all the children. This really had an impact
on us and helped us to understand the enormity of the brutal murders of the
Holocaust. Following this we read Kaddish in remembrance of every child who
died, every life that was cut short and all the dreams and aspirations gone forever.
All these children had a life just like us. They had dreams, they had wishes to
achieve and they had potential to succeed.
Rebecca read out the response of the daughter, who was
given away by her mother. Her mother had perished in the Holocaust, yet she had
survived and miraculously had the letter that her mother left for her - this
gave us a sense of hope.
We then gathered in the Valley of Communities. We stood
in a circle around an Israeli flag and listened to songs, with our arms linked
and our heads held high. After this we davened Mincha and felt an extreme sense
of spirituality. We felt empowered by the strength of the whole group. We are
Jewish communities, just like those that we stood to remember. Ending with a
sense of hope and pride, we traveled to go Go-Karting, and enjoyed this
afternoon greatly.
Afterwards we went to 'pantry packing,' a program in
which volunteers help pack bags filled with rice and chickpeas for charity. The
bags would then go as part of a needy family's monthly box, which would
completely provide for them food-wise. We were split up into teams of seven and
each team worked as a unit: putting stickers on the bags, stamping them with
the expiration date, filling them with rice, sealing them and packing the boxes
with thirty bags each. It was brilliant for team-building and inspired us to
work together for the good of the poor. It was exactly what we needed after the
deeply-spiritual, self-reflecting, emotional roller coaster that was Yad
Vashem. The experience helped us bond as a group and it felt really good to
contribute to the welfare of people we had never met before. The leader of the
charity mentioned that the program costs $3,000,000 per year and they clearly
need our support.
Overall, the events of the day were very diverse and
affected us in various ways. Yad Vashem was very personal and emotional and the
children's memorial in particular helped us to relate to the Holocaust in a
very different and more emotional way than we have ever done before. The transition
from the upsetting and deeply-moving experience of Yad Vashem to the fast-paced
and exhilarating Go-Karting was difficult but it allowed us to recover for the
rest of the day. This meant that we started the pantry packing feeling
positive. We then ended the day on a high, having helped people to put food on
their table, which is something that we have never had to do, and this made us
realise just how privileged we are.
