One day we went to the Israeli Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem.
I had been there many years ago, and found certain parts particularly moving.
But that was before the museum was renovated. What is called The Children's Memorial continues to be a powerful experience.
The rest of the museum felt to me like a multi-media barrage of the senses. Pictures, relics, music, old film-footage and tapes of interviews with survivors surround the visitor and in my case instead of inspiring me to make sure it never happens again, it just made me feel I was being hit over the head with a lead pipe.
And the final area settled it. It was basically a room saying "because of our suffering in the holocaust, we have the right to take over Palestine..." Never mind the fact that doing so would cause so much suffering for the people who already lived here!
Also different from the last time I went to Yad Vashem is the fact that the last time I was there was before I knew about the suffering of the Palestinians.
I am definitely not saying the Holocaust = the Occupation.
BUT certain ironies are unavoidable.
Early in the museum is a quote: "A country is not just what it does --it is also what it tolerates." (Kurt Tucholsky)
Israel tolerates oppressing Palestinians in so many ways...
Payne noticed another irony as he went through. As the museum traced the activities of the Third Reich the signs said: "When Germany occupied Poland it did this... When they occupied France they did so and so ... when they occupied another country..." Helloo -- maybe occupying a country does not bring out the best of any one!
A few days later we were in Hebron and a CPT (Christian Peacemaker Team member) pointed out another irony.
At the time of Kristallnacht, Nazis painted a Star of David on the doors of houses of
Jews, marking them for boycott and later arrest and torture and death.
In modern day Hebron, Jewish Settlers paint the doors of Palestinians with a Star of David.
What was really learned from the Holocaust?
Never again.
Except for some people.
