I was able to visit Mount Herzl in Jerusalem a couple of days ago. The Mount’s best known feature is the Holocaust History Museum, usually referred to as Yad Vashem, but that is just a part of an extensive complex of museums, memorials and parks.
The Mount is named after Theodore Herzl, the principal pioneer of the Zionist movement. Herzl’s tomb is placed on a large plaza at the summit, which was being visited by groups of soldiers when I was there. The plaza is surrounded by a network of cemeteries and memorials to other prominent Zionists and Israeli Prime Ministers and Presidents. A series of winding paths lead to the Yad Vashem complex.
I will write more about Yad Vashem in the future. Suffice to say, briefly, for now, that it was as powerful an experience as I had expected. The Museum presents the history of the Holocaust in straightforward, unsentimental fashion through imagery, documentation and video. There is no need for elaboration: the images, exhibits words and testimonies speak for themselves. I will return to read and watch more than I was able to take in during a single visit.
The brutal simplicity of the Museum’s design makes the experience yet more forceful. It is no more than a long tunnel, perhaps 500 yards long, shaped like a pyramid, the slanting walls creating an appropriate sense of suffocation. The exhibits are presented in rooms leading off from the central space, arranged so that the visitor must visit each one in turn to progress through the Museum. At the end of the hall the space opens to a viewing area providing a panoramic view of forested hills. The political message is of course blunt: this is what we suffered, and now, here is the land we believe will ensure this can never happen again – a brilliant light at the end of the darkest of journeys.
Photography inside the Museum isn’t permitted – there are photos on the Museum website – but here are some images that I hope communicate something of the atmosphere of the park, and Yad Vashem’s stark power.
Please click the images for larger versions. The pictures are also available as a Flickr album.
