UN VISAGE D’HOMME, TOUT SIMPLEMENT…

At Yad Vashem with Alex Avram

Monday, January 21, 2025

an article by Irina AIRINEI

 

‘I will give them in My house and within My walls a place and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, and all who keep the Sabbath from profaning it and who hold fast to My covenant, I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their freewill offerings will be accepted on My altar, for My house will be a house of prayer for all peoples.’” (Isaiah 56:3-7)

Yad Vashem, a place and a name for the millions of victims of systematic anti-Jewish persecution during the Holocaust (Shoah). A memorial where the souls of the perished are obelisks of Light to God.

Here, in 2018, I followed a training internship as a master’s student at PAIDEIA, The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden. And ever since then, my ardent appreciation for the treasure-trove people, the researchers I met here…

YAD VASHEM…Its database includes information about the victims of the Shoah: those who were killed, many whose fate has not yet been established, as well as some who survived. In order to shed as much light as possible, to recreate their identity, the researchers of the Hall of Names and the Shoah database work tirelessly, gathering, from each country, with perseverance and hope, the testimonies that still exist…A work of reconstruction done with painstaking and dedication, with love and pain, in the vibration of the past. Their names and souls are the flame rekindled by these wonderful historians. They thus pass them into the Book of Life, reinterpreting destiny after destiny…

 

With modesty, Dr. Alexander Avram, director of the Hall of Names and the Central Database of Names of Holocaust Victims, leads us, as always, on the symbolic path of those cruel years, in which the Jews were crushed under the wheels of history, a history emptied of spirit, faith, and humanism.

 

These „archaeologists” of the Holocaust collect the names of the victims, photographs, documents, and personal, testimonial artifacts. Yad Vashem thus manages to rewrite, page after page, the history of this tragedy, of this period „when humanity died a little…”, to restore names, faces, and destinies…To publicly recognize them, through memorial and commemoration ceremonies…A world saved by remembrance, in this Temple of Remembrance…

The Hall of Names is a memorial to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. The main hall is composed of two cones: one ten meters high, continued downwards by a cone resembling a well dug into the underground rock, with the base filled with water. On the upper cone is a display of 600 photographs of Holocaust victims and fragments of testimonies.

These are reflected in the water of life at the bottom of the lower cone, commemorating the victims whose names remain unknown. Around the platform is the circular repository, which houses the approximately 2.7 million pages of testimony collected to date, with blank spaces for those that have not yet been sent.

 

The archive is the oldest department of Yad Vashem. Before presenting an exhibition, Yad Vashem collects objects. The most famous of these are historical photographs, as well as pages of testimonies collected from survivors. This has created a database of personal information about those who survived and those who were killed in the Holocaust. Yad Vashem has also gained access to the Bad Arolsen International Tracing Service database of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and these two databases complement each other for research purposes.

 

Since the 1950s, Yad Vashem has collected approximately 110,000 audio, video and written testimonies of Holocaust survivors. The interviews are the sap that connects generations, branches of a tree that embraces the sky: a tree of life. Adjacent to this hall is a study area with a computerized database where visitors can search online for the names of Holocaust victims.

 

“He who makes peace in His heavens, make peace for us and for all Israel.” (quote from the Kaddish recited at the funeral).

This Children’s Memorial of the named and the nameless children unites death and life, war and peace, in an eternal prayer.

Those children are stars that continue their lives in heaven.

Somewhere, on this initiatory path, one can see the lyrics of Fondane, who perished in Auschwitz:

,,Mais quand vous foulerez ce bouquet d’orties

qui avait été moi, dans un autre siècle,

en une histoire qui vous sera périmée,

souvenez-vous seulement que j’étais innocent

et que, tout comme vous, mortels de ce jour-là,

j’avais eu, moi aussi, un visage marqué

par la colère, par la pitié et la joie,

un visage d’homme, tout simplement!” (L’Exode, 1942)

The water of life and hope, through remembrance, bathes their sacrifice of innocent victims.

Man can be Man beyond differences in ethnicity or religion.

On the Alley of the Righteous between the Peoples, whispers of encouragement can be heard that gave life and strength to the people afflicted in the Holocaust. It is a dialogue of brotherhood between people.
Thank you, Alex Avram, for your generosity in guiding us, once again, through this impressive place that urges us to NOT FORGET the tragedies of the past.

 

I came here with a volume of unpublished documents about a broken destiny: Mihai Polocoșeriu, professor and mayor of Suceava about whom prof. Sorin Golda, president of the Jewish Community of Suceava, wrote: „He was a true support for the Jewish community, a fact recognized by documents of the Jews of Suceava, both during the period when he was mayor, and especially during the terrible period of deportation.”

The Memory and the Name of Love for People will save us!

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Asociația Anima Fori - Sufletul Cetății s-a născut în anul 2012 din dorința unui mic grup de oameni de condei de a-și pune aptitudinile creatoare în slujba societății și a valorilor umaniste. Dorim să inițiem proiecte cu caracter științific, cultural și social, să sprijinim tineri performeri în evoluția lor și să ne implicăm în construirea unei societăți democratice, o societate bazată pe libertatea de conștiință și de exprimare a tuturor membrilor ei. Prezenta publicație este realizată în colaborare cu Gazeta Românească.

Despre noi

Asociația Anima Fori - Sufletul Cetății s-a născut în anul 2012 din dorința unui mic grup de oameni de condei de a-și pune aptitudinile creatoare în slujba societății și a valorilor umaniste. Dorim să inițiem proiecte cu caracter științific, cultural și social, să sprijinim tineri performeri în evoluția lor și să ne implicăm în construirea unei societăți democratice, o societate bazată pe libertatea de conștiință și de exprimare a tuturor membrilor ei. Prezenta publicație este realizată în colaborare cu Gazeta Românească.