Tag: memorial

Netherlands builds memorial

A bird’s-eye view of the Holocaust Memorial of Names to be built in Amsterdam. (photo from holocaustnamenmonument.nl)

More than 70 years after the Second World War, a memorial in Amsterdam will be erected with the names of all the Dutch Holocaust victims. This will finally provide the Netherlands with a tangible memorial where the 102,000 Jewish victims and 220 Sinti and Roma victims can be commemorated individually and collectively.

Up to now, no memorial in the Netherlands has listed each individual Holocaust victim by name. For surviving relatives, a place to commemorate family members is invaluable. In addition, a memorial listing the more than 102,000 names serves as a reminder to current and future generations of the dangers of racism and discrimination.

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis murdered an estimated six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma. Of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands in 1940, 102,000 did not survive the war.

Not all Jews were murdered in the gas chambers of the extermination camps Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Majdanek, Chelmno and Sobibor. Many were murdered in mass executions or died as a result of sickness, hunger, exhaustion or slave labour. The Dutch Holocaust Memorial of Names commemorates all these victims.

Designed by Polish-Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind, whose studio is headquartered in New York City, the Dutch Holocaust Memorial of Names will be located in the heart of the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam. The memorial consists of the four Hebrew letters that make up the word zachor, to remember. When visitors enter the memorial, they find themselves in a labyrinth of passageways flanked by two-metre-tall brick walls that convey the message, “In memory of.” Inscribed on each of the 102,000 bricks is a name, date of birth and age of death, in such a way that the name of each victim can be touched.

In combination with the highly reflective geometric forms of the steel letters, the brickwork connects Amsterdam’s past and present. A narrow void at the point where the brick walls meet the metal forms makes it appear that the steel letters float, symbolizing the interruption in the history and culture of the Dutch people.

Anyone can adopt a name on the memorial by donating 50 euros. For more information, visit holocaustnamenmonument.nl.

Marking memorial’s 30th year

On Sunday, Sept. 24, 11 a.m., at Schara Tzedeck Cemetery in New Westminster, the annual High Holidays Cemetery Service, presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Congregation Schara Tzedeck and the Jewish War Veterans, will mark the 30th anniversary of the Holocaust Memorial. On April 26, 1987, 1,300 numbers of the community, including Holocaust survivors and their families, attended the unveiling of the memorial, on which more than 900 names of family members who perished during the Holocaust were inscribed. Survivor Lillian Boraks-Nemetz wrote the following poem after that unveiling 30 years ago.

The Six Million
Written in dedication of the Holocaust Monument in Schara Tzedeck Cemetery

In this cemetery
far away from where They died
you stand dwarfed by this giant monument
your feet sinking lower and lower into the earth
your soul graining deeper and deeper
into the black granite.

You stand an alien to this earth
a born again human
sixty odd years away from the factories of death
of mercy – pleading voices scattered to deaf winds.

You stand in this cemetery
on the anniversary of the Holocaust
staring with hollow eyes
at simulated graves of strangers finally named
who once went to sleep in a common ditch
souls torn from peace like bones from flesh –

a child’s name upon your lips
a child’s fist pressing upon your breath
to break the granite silence
to speak to shout to scream the truth
to silence forever the mad dogs who
deny the happening of Shoah.

You remember as you stand here
waiting your turn to honour the Dead
how you stood with Them then
in line for death only you didn’t die
running away on all fours
through the contaminated sewers like a rat.

You say Kaddish and for a single moment
become one with the living and the dead.
Then you, the survivor, slip away into an alien world
where your soul must learn to sustain alone,
The Six Million.

How we memorialize the past

The most recent racist conflagration in the United States was ignited, ostensibly, by the removal (or threatened removal) of Confederate commemorative statues and plaques. We say ostensibly because it seemed some people were just itching for a fight and this issue popped up.

Each community, or each society, must determine who and what it commemorates. It is understandable that African-Americans, among others, would be offended by statues and other historical monuments that adulate those who defended slavery in the U.S. Civil War. Those who decry their removal as an “erasing of history” seem to be unfamiliar with the concept of libraries and museums, which are among the foremost repositories of history. Remembering history is different from venerating it. For example, a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in front of a courthouse is an affront to equality before the law. The same statue in a museum could provide an opportunity for reflection and discussion.

Outside Budapest is a curious outdoor museum featuring dozens of statues and monuments from the communist era. It is a kitschy museum but it invites guests to ponder the propaganda of earlier eras, even admire some of it from a perspective of artwork, but it is decidedly not a place of veneration. It is a clear statement that such works, if they are to be publicly displayed, should be positioned in a way that does not esteem the ideas that inspired them, but instead invites observers to reflect on their meanings and the often catastrophic outcomes of their ideologies.

Similarly, the preservation of Auschwitz and other places of Nazi terror was not done in honour of that terrible time and the evil that defined it, but for the opposite reason: to ensure that future generations face the reality of that history and to inspire people to seek a better future. Context is crucial.

While Americans battle their demons, some Canadians have taken issue with our history and how it is commemorated. The government of Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first prime minister, was responsible for implementing the residential schools system, a past with which most Canadians are only now beginning to grapple. Last month, the Ontario elementary teachers’ union said MacDonald’s name should be stripped from the nine schools in that province that are named for him. By that logic, we would eliminate his visage from our $10 bills and remove his statues and other likenesses from our public spaces.

Should we? Well, if Canadians had a thoroughgoing national discussion on the subject and a consensus clearly emerged that what was bad about MacDonald outweighs that which was good, then yes. But we should not jump in willy-nilly, thoughtlessly applying the values of today upon people of the past. To be clear: the residential schools system was an atrocity and a national disgrace; we know this now. How we attempt to rehabilitate our country and make amends for this awful history is a discussion in which we are immersed. The veneration of figures who were party to that history invites a legitimate and thoughtful reconsideration – neither those whose knee-jerk reaction is to tear down statues, nor those who reflexively balk at the very idea, are exhibiting the sort of approach we need. Ontario’s elementary school teachers, for example, may have missed the mark. If ever there were a teaching opportunity, it would be to engage young Canadians in critical thinking about why their school is named for the first prime minister, why some people think that’s problematic, and how empathy toward minorities is key to a better future.

But we should be careful in determining the measuring stick we apply. In considering the legacies of any public figure who lived more than a couple of decades ago, we would be hard-pressed to find one who would measure up to today’s standards on the rights and roles of Canadian indigenous peoples, Jews, women, gay people, or really any minorities. One might even argue: Who are we to judge? Are we assuming this generation has reached the moral summit of civilization? The state of the world today suggests we have much left to do to advance tikkun olam. Future generations will not likely give us any great kudos for perfecting humanity.

In the end, we cannot fathom how our descendants will view us and our behaviours. If, as now seems tragically inevitable, human-created climate change wreaks havoc on our world, future generations may look at our car driving, energy consumption and jet vacations as the direct cause and remove the names and likenesses of even the best of our generation from their schools and public squares.

By all means, we should consciously consider representations of our past and whether they are appropriate or inappropriate for our times. It is a discussion worth having, but we should have that discussion before we go racing around tearing down monuments and renaming schools.

 

A visit to Mount Herzl

On Mount Herzl is a memorial to the more than 4,000 Ethiopian Jews who died attempting to reach Israel. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

The 29th of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan – this year, it fell on Nov. 30 – is a day of celebration for the Israeli Ethiopian community and a national Israeli holiday. Late in the afternoon, thousands of people gather in Talpiot (southern Jerusalem) on the Haas Promenade for Sigd, the day marking the acceptance of the Torah, and celebrating their history and culture.

photo - The memorial to Ethiopian Jews is multifaceted
The memorial to Ethiopian Jews is multifaceted. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

Despite the enormous loss of life and the discrimination faced by Israelis of Ethiopian descent, Sigd still is, in part, a prayer to make it possible to reach Israel. The Knesset legislated the Sigd Law in 2008, which made 29 Cheshvan a national holiday. The Knesset also legislated 28 Iyar (the Hebrew month that falls roughly in May) as the memorial day for community members who died making the journey to Israel. And, the year prior, in 2007, the Israeli Ministry of Immigration and Absorption in cooperation with the World Zionist Organization and the Israeli Defence Ministry unveiled a memorial to the more than 4,000 Ethiopian Jews who died attempting to reach Israel. Located on Mount Herzl, this stirring monument gives official recognition to the community’s largely unknown suffering. Until it was commemorated, the only existing monument stood in southern Jerusalem, at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel.

Starting at the end of 1979 and continuing for some four years, the Ethiopian Jewish community uprooted itself en masse to fulfil its dream of coming to Israel. It was both a physically exhausting and mentally terrifying journey. In Ethiopia’s forests and Sudan’s deserts, thousands were robbed, beaten, raped and even murdered. If there are graves for the fallen, they are far away from Eretz Yisrael.

The Mount Herzl memorial reminds visitors not just of the Ethiopian villages, but of an entire life left behind. Explanations are mounted in Amharic, Hebrew and English. In Hebrew, eight panels dramatically narrate 1) the exodus from Ethiopia from a boy’s perspective, 2) the events along the way, as explained by the group’s head, 3) life in Sudanese refugee camps, from a mother’s recollections, and 4) the actual departure for Israel, as related by the kes, or religious head of the community.

To learn more about Ethiopian Jews’ journey to reach Israel, Baruch’s Odyssey: An Ethiopian Jew’s Struggle to Save His People by Baruch Tegegne, as told to Phyllis Schwartzman Pinchuk, and the children’s book The Storyteller’s Beads by Jane Kurtz are recommended reads. As for movies, there are Mekonen: The Journey of an African Jew, directed by Rivka Shore; Live and Become, directed by Radu Mihaileanu; Zrubavel, directed by Shmuel Beru; and Yiftach’s Daughter, directed by Einat Kapach.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Temple Sholom’s roots

Left to right: Michael Schwartz of the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, Rabbi Philip Bregman, Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, Mike Harcourt and Chris Gorczynski. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

Lisa Wilson, special projects coordinator at Vancouver Heritage Foundation, welcomed the approximately 60 people who gathered at Trimble Park on the afternoon of Oct. 23 for the presentation of a plaque commemorating Temple Sholom’s first building, which was firebombed in January 1985.

A joint effort between VHF, Temple Sholom and the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, the plaque was the 86th presentation of a planned 125 in VHF’s Places That Matter project, which started in 2011, said Wilson. “Our goal is to raise awareness about the people, places and events that tell Vancouver’s history,” she said, “and we invited the public to nominate and vote online, and an independent site-selection committee selected 125 sites to receive a plaque.”

In anticipation of a website for the project, Wilson invited people to submit their memories of the original Temple Sholom building.

“I moved here in 1984 and I lived just down the street,” said Vancouver Deputy Mayor Heather Deal. “I had been here for less than a year when the fire happened, and I was shocked…. I moved here from Cleveland, Ohio, a city deeply, deeply divided along racial lines … and I was shaken to my core when this happened just down the block from me.”

Deal said Vancouver is a “great city in striving to overcome” intolerance. “I think we’ve come a long way and have a long way to go, and this is a great reminder of not forgetting that it is much closer to the surface than we think it is sometimes.”

She noted the importance of the Jewish community to the city of Vancouver, and acknowledged specifically the growth of the Temple Sholom community. “I welcome you all here to acknowledge something that’s happened and, out of that, the good that has come and the better city that we are today because we learn from our mistakes and we learn from other people’s lack of tolerance, so that we continue to move forward as a peaceful and tolerant city.”

Temple Sholom spiritual leader Rabbi Dan Moskovitz spoke of the Holocaust-related memorials he and his wife Sharon witnessed on a mission to Central and Eastern Europe this summer, stumbling blocks that indicate where a Jewish family lived or a Jewish business stood. This local memorial plaque is different, however. “This notes where we were, but it also acknowledges that we are still here,” said Moskovitz. “And though not in that physical space on West 10th, we are very much a part of the city in our ‘new’ home on Oak and 54th…. This is not a memorial plaque, but a testament rather to the roots – the seeds that were planted, the roots that grew – and to what has blossomed into a wonderful Reform Jewish community in Vancouver and, I think, an incredible member and partner in the larger faith community of our city.”

Cantor Arthur Guttman then led the group in Psalm 100, after which Philip Bregman, rabbi emeritus of Temple Sholom, briefly shared some of the congregation’s history, including the story of the firebombing and his role in helping save the synagogue’s Torahs, as the building was burning. There had been a previous arson attempt and vandalism to his car, which led the congregation to start putting iron bars on all the windows, as the police were not motivated to act. The job was almost complete when the arsonist struck again, throwing a Molotov cocktail into the one window without a grate.

Bregman spoke of his disbelief that such antisemitism could exist in Canada. He spoke of his phone call to then-mayor Mike Harcourt, who was at the plaque ceremony, and Harcourt and his wife Becky’s support of the congregation in its work to rebuild. The Harcourts attended services, said Bregman. “Mike and Becky showing up made a statement that was so very important: it was not the Jewish community that was attacked, it was Vancouver, it was Canada, it was our society that had been attacked.”

After the Temple Sholom bombing, said Bregman, there was also an attempt to torch the Chevra Kadisha, which was on Broadway and Alma at the time. “These were targeted events that were taking place,” he said. “The police were tremendously responsive then and thereafter.”

Bregman expressed his pleasure at the work that had been done to mark the place where Temple Sholom once stood, and how the congregation has grown since.

The plaque – which will be placed at 4426 West 10th Ave. – was presented by VHF board member Chris Gorczynski, who read it aloud. The event ended with Guttman leading those gathered in Oseh Shalom.

Community memorial for Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel

Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Sha’er and Naftali Fraenkel z”l (photo from mfa.gov.il)

On Monday, June 30, the bodies of Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, Naftali Fraenkel, 16, who were kidnapped June 12, were found northwest of Hebron. The sad discovery was the result of an extensive search effort led by the Israel Defence Forces, the Israel Security Agency and the Israel Police. A joint funeral was held July 1. Jewish groups and others around the world join in mourning.

In Vancouver, there will be a community memorial service, coordinated by the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver and led by Rabbi Berger, Rabbi Moskovitz and Cantor Szenes-Strauss, on Thursday, July 3, at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver at 7:30 p.m.

As well, to share your thoughts and express your condolences to the families of the boys, visit the Jewish Federations of North America’s “Remember Our Boys” page.

The message is universal

Six designs have been unveiled for a Canadian National Holocaust Monument to be constructed in Ottawa. The designs vary wildly, including a proposal by the renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, who designed Berlin’s Jewish Museum. Libeskind and his colleague Gail Lord propose a structure in the form of an elongated Star of David. Five other shortlisted design concepts are also under review by Heritage Canada.

These are powerfully moving proposals, each with a unique interpretation of memory and loss. Construction on the final design is anticipated to begin this year, with inauguration of the memorial in 2015. It will sit near the centre of the nation’s capital, opposite the Canadian War Museum.

A reasonable question might be why Canada is inaugurating a memorial to a tragic event on another continent. As a country, we continue to struggle with aspects of our own difficult history of conquest, violence, repression and victimization. Why a Holocaust memorial in our capital?

Here’s why: as a member of the Allied nations confronting Hitler’s Germany, Canada played a role in bringing the Nazi regime and the Holocaust to an end, albeit regrettably late. We also have some penance to do, having been one of the countries – including all Western countries except the Dominican Republic – that bears some responsibility for the Holocaust, having closed our doors to the desperate Jews of Europe.

But there is another, more important reason for a Canadian Holocaust memorial. We must remind ourselves that, while the Holocaust was unique in its intent and scope, it carries universal messages and lessons for future generations about the dangers of totalitarianism, intolerance, extreme nationalism and racialism, the perversion of science and myriad other lessons still inadequately assimilated. Above all, while the Holocaust was particular in its genocidal intent toward Jews, it was not as particular in its Germanness. While the instigators of the atrocities were German, they found enthusiastic supporters, to varying degrees, in every country they invaded – and even in places they didn’t, including Canada. And some Germans were among the bravest enemies of Nazism.

There are so many lessons to be learned from every aspect of the Holocaust that we may never do more than scratch the surface of how it happened, why people behaved as they did, what it means and how future such atrocities can be prevented. But we hasten understanding and the potential for learning vital lessons if we acknowledge that the Holocaust was perpetrated, above all, by human beings against other human beings. If we isolate the Holocaust as something that is uniquely German – or European – we lose the opportunity to understand that, at root, it was perpetrated by human beings with motivations not at all exclusive to a single nationality, time or place.  This is what makes Ottawa an ideal location for a Holocaust memorial.