Following requests from my readers this post was translated to English.
1.6.2017 לינק לגירסא העברית - בתחתית הדף The Architecture of Holocaust Memory – Yad VaShem Museum, Jerusalem
I recently had the privilege of being part of a moving experience, one of the jewels that Maty G. periodically lays before me. I had the privilege of glimpsing the spark of an original, primal creation. I ask myself how one approaches the planning of a place intended as the home to the memory of a tragedy so terrible that the deeper one delves, the further strays from any form of comprehension. What form does one give to the home of such a memory?
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When Safdie stands before Maty's finished work, he is surprised. "Wow", he says. For the record, I should disclose that I am the second generation of the Holocaust. My parents came from Hungary, from the forced labor camps and from Auschwitz concentration camp. As a young woman, I thought myself free of influence from the "Shoah". As the years passed, and with the recent rise of terrorism, the mass waves of immigration, and hatred for the "other" that have flooded the world, I have discovered that within me lies a certain knowledge that a worldwide holocaust of any kind is almost inevitable. Indeed, acts of atrocity are occurring even today all around the globe, one of the most horrific of which in Syria, our neighbor. This internal holocaust of mine causes me deep sadness, despair. The Holocaust Museum at Yad VaShem, Jerusalem. I am submerged in an atomic shelter in the belly of the mountain. The concrete walls, the thick concrete walls close in on the triangle prism-shaped building, a building of unfamiliar appearance, from within which my terrified gaze focuses on my surroundings. This dwelling of death bubbles with life. Individual visitors, couples, groups. The atomic shelter is filled with a quiet whisper, a medley of languages and faces from around the world – Hebrew, German, English, French, Japanese, Swedish… My ear detects Hungarian, a whisper in the language of my parents, a group of Arab high school students, a group of soldiers. No-one glances at their smartphone. I have difficulty examining the exhibits in depth and so wander the length of the prism from one gallery to the next. The floor is broken and split and articles from the Holocaust are displayed among the fragments. I step carefully along the memorial time-line. My eyes are pulled towards the natural light penetrating the room via the ceiling, and at the end of the concrete prism – a bright light. The natural light "saves" me during this journey and pulls me to its end and the dramatic exit from the museum that bursts from within the northern slope of the mountain to a view of modern-day Jerusalem.
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My friend, architect Uri Shitrit, once told me that the further away from an event you move, the more abstract the manner of its commemoration becomes. The physical exhibits have already been displayed, now it is the idea that needs passing on. The museum, as required and as is to be expected, is overflowing with artifacts and physical testimony, but the museum structure itself is the message. The building works on the visitor's feeling of experience. The atomic shelter, of which humanity may well yet have need, brings the sense of fear and the "dead end" to the "here and now", not allowing one to relate to the Holocaust as a distant historical episode. And yet, it is the light of hope that accompanies the visitor throughout, even if unknowingly. My feelings are enhanced by a sense of great wonder at Moshe Safdie's ability to create such a small drawing and transform it to a magnificent building possessing its own right of existence within the concrete reality.
I think on all of our different ways to come to grips with the Holocaust. Safdie – in creating the monumental museum.
Maty Grunberg – for his works that are now displayed in the Holocaust Museum in his home town, Skopje in Macedonia.
And my humble contribution, a film that I made "A Jew from Hungary", on my family as Holocaust survivors. Each person and their own "Shoah".
link to part 2 - Am I "Second Generation"? http://www.nomikan.com/?p=1321
Maty Grunberg, Haunted Memory, small sculpture Link to the Hebrew version: http://www.nomikan.com/?p=1187 Links to Safdie's website: http://www.msafdie.com/projects/yadvashemholocausthistorymuseum http://www.msafdie.com/projects/yadvashemtransportmemorial http://www.msafdie.com/projects/yadvashemchildrensholocaustmemorial Yad Vashem : http://www.yadvashem.org
translation from Hebrew - Tamlil-Segev |