Jerusalem. Memorial poison Va-Shem

Visit the poison memorial Vashem does not require preface. The topic is clear without it. The crimes of the Nazis, during the Second World War, could somehow affect the fate of all families of Europe Jews. Where, as not in the Jewish State of Israel, it is intended to settle down a similar center, a complex of institutes that gathered such extensive information about the phenomenon called the catastrophe!

I think that there is no such citizen of Israel, who would not have visited here, as not a single tourist group, the route of which would have passed the Memorial. It is clear that for one visit it is impossible to cover this "Hollow", we will only visit several places of the complex, but I will try to choose the most impressive of them.

Alley of righteous

"The one who saved one life as if saved the whole world" – This inscription engraved on the Israeli medal "The righteous of the peoples of the world". She is awarded those who in the period of World War II contributed to the salvation of Jews. In the European Jewry disaster memorial "Poison" In Jerusalem collected data on 17.443 righteous of the world. These are these numbers according to 01.01.2000:

Poland – 5373
Netherlands – 4289
France – 1913
Ukraine – 1403
Belgium – 1172
Hungary – 503
Lithuania – 440
Russia, Belarus – 434
Czech Republic, Slovakia – 434
Germany – 336
Italy – 266
Greece – 231
Yugoslavia – 213
Latvia – 90
Austria – 83
Albania – 56
Romania – 55
Moldova – 33
Switzerland – 27
Norway – 16
Denmark – 14
Bulgaria – 13
United Kingdom – 13
Sweden – 7
Armenia – 6
Spain – 4
Estonia – 2
China – 2
USA – 1
Turkey – 1
Portugal – 1
Brazil – 1
Japan – 1

The very names of the Swedish diplomat Raul Wallenberg, who personally contributed to the salvation of thousands of Jews, Oscar Schindler, for which a thousand two hundred lives, King Denmark, who had a bandage with a six-pointed star, and many others who committed shares of a global scale are. However, not a smaller feat of the only life about which is written on the medals, t.To. For her salvation wound a danger of loss of own, which could not be given the second.

Before entering the Memorial there is an alley of the righteous on which one tree is planted in honor of each. On the names named above you know no less than me, so I will tell you about people of little-known ..

For each war began in different ways. Pioneer camp, who was near the Lithuanian city of Druskininkai, was literally shot by German cannons. The 20-year-old commandant of the camp, Lithuanian Stasis Svidskis, mounted thought: in the camp more than 70 Jewish children. At the railway station, he agreed to export. Required an outstanding energy in the supply of food, promoting the composition towards the Urals, love and sensitivity to nothing to understand.

And there were terrible from Lithuania. Only now we know them with reliability: 70 thousand Jews were destroyed under Vilnius; under Alitus – 60 thousand; in Kaunas – 40 thousand; in Mariampol – 10 thousand; in Panevezis – 8 thousand. Of the 240 thousand Jews who lived before the war in Lithuania, 225 thousand were killed. 70 more could be added to them if Stasis had not been near. Having served his at the front, he returned to Udmurtia and headed the children’s house, in which the guys from Lithuania were collected. At the end of 1944, all the pupils of the orphan returned to Lithuania, but there were almost no one left at home – they were killed. Their names are preserved in the memory of the saved Stasis, in honor of which a tree is planted on the alley.

"Killed this pig?" – Asked the service of the German Air Force of the German Hospital of Inga Baumgart on July 20, the 44th year, on the day of the assassination day at Hitler. After that, it was clear that only escape could save her from Gestapo. Gita Bauer and her sister Maria Schwelien – these are the names of those who hid ingu to the end of the war. They did not want to take a medal, arguing that everyone had to do the same as they. However, they were told: "There are so few people in the world who know that not all the Germans are bad". Gite and Mary do not need to ask a question: "Where you were at the time you did?". They have the right to answer: "Remained people". During the awarding of Gita Medal in the Memorial, the FRG Ambassador to Israel said: "It would be much more difficult for me to fulfill my diplomatic duties and I would feel less confident as a German in the Jewish state, if not the dedication of the gita and other heroes".

And one more name: Chiune Sugihar. "?" – Japanese? – Japanese, samurai by origin! What is the connection with the Jews? – "Schindler’s list" became the will of fate known, and "List of southyhar" She remained secret until 1985, when the name Chiyun was assigned to one of the parks of Jerusalem, and in his honor a tree was planted on the alley of the righteous.

Chiyun Sugihar was the consul of Japan in Lithuania, who issued thousands (!) transit visas to Jews, visas that saved them. And the feat was that the Japanese government categorically forbid it to do this and violating the order he entailed a direct conflict with the Code of honor of the Samurai and committed an act equal to state treason. "After all, these were people, and they needed our help. I am glad that I found the strength to help them" – said many years later by Chiyun Sugihar.

Plates, signs, endless nameplates with names under the trees … each of them can be revived. 17.433 names of the righteous people multiplied by one, dozens, hundreds, thousands of life of the Jews of saved. Is it not the anthem of life, triumphant over the tragedy of the catastrophe?! So let’s bow down each!

Spacious, Skipoous Hall … Grouper, Full Tragic Music Music. And scattered on the floor of the floor in the form of a map of the concentration camps. The sound of them on the hearing, one more terrible. Unlike the alleys of the righteous, there are no specific names. The level of the tragedy rises to the plank of what will be called a disaster. Nuremberg process, hundreds of films, books and performances told the truth about the atrocities of the fascists, but every year more and more new facts, crusions, evidence of former concentration camps come to the surface.

Memory Hall of those killed in Europe concentration camps

One of them about "Ravensbrück". It was 80 km from Berlin in an unusually pastoral – beautiful terrain. Unthinkable, but the fact that she became a witness of the suffering and terrible death of the ninety of two thousand women and children. On the prisoners were experimed: injections, operations without anesthesia and painkillers, artificial fractures for the purpose of bone transplanting, sterilization – fantasy of rasons was inexhaustible.

By the end of 1942, the camp counted 15 thousand. prisoners, and in October there were eighty. The destroyer was gaining momentum and reached the project capacity. The appearance of resistance groups: Communist, Social – Democrats, representatives of bourgeois circles of society revealed their leaders who united hatred for fascism and hope for victory over him. Few could escape from the burning of the gas chamber and executions, but the resistance dismissed them from the state of the herd, wandering silently on a misfortune, gave birth to self-esteem and, most importantly, the desire to survive and enthusiasm over Nazism.

In 1959 in the territory "Ravensbrück" A memorial museum was opened. On the commemorative slab at the entrance the words are knocked out: "They were all our mothers and sisters. You could not have to play free and learn today, maybe you would not have anything in the world, if these women did not protect you and your future with their gentle bodies, turned into a steel shield against the fascist terror". This phrase belonging to the German writer Anne Zhegers becomes particularly relevant now when neo-Nazism again raises his head in Europe, desets the graves of the dead, draws a swastika on the monument Anna Frank. You need to attach the call of Julius Fuccus: "People, be vigilant" And from yourself to add: "Remember women "Ravensbrück"!

And about one and a half million dead Jewish children! The memory of which is devoted to another hall, close to the only visited.

Here reigns full of darkness. You are immersed in it and go around the narrow, winding corridor. Sounds quiet, mournful music. And the voice of the announcer who utters the name, the last name of the child, his age and the country from which he happened. The next, the next and new one … and so one and a half million times. And as if from the sky every time the stars fall. This is a selected baby life for the fascists, just started, but they interrupted. Why the words? On visitors hurts to watch when they come out of this hall. And it is impossible to get used to it, no matter how many times you visited the memorial!

Sculptural work

On the territory of the memorial there is a number of sculptural compositions. On the most expressive of them, I would like to stay.

Sculptural composition of the catastrophe and heroism

This is the work of the famous sculptor-monumentalist Nathan Rappoport (born in Warsaw – 1911., Died in Petah – Tikve – 1987.). A few words about the sculptor … The end of them in 1936, the Warsaw Academy of Arts was marked by participation in the Warsaw Exhibition "Sports in art", where his work was exposed "Tennis player". Nathana was invited to an exhibition in Berlin, but he refused due to the fascist regime established in Germany. After the section of Poland in 1939 – he found himself in the Soviet Union, fought in the ranks of sa. Upon returning to Warsaw, began work on the monument dedicated to the heroes of Warsaw Ghetto, which was established in 1948. This topic becomes dominant in his work, it gets further development that is found incarnation in a number of works, the best of which are: Monument to the head of the rebellion of M.Anilevich (Kibbuz "Poison Mordechai"), Monument "MEGIAT HA-ESH" ("Fire scroll"), installed on the old road on Jerusalem and, of course, the sculptural composition of the catastrophe and heroism (memorial "Poison"). Since 1948, the master lived in Israel, and since 1959 in the US. The history of the life of the Jews in Warsaw Ghetto, the pages of resistance could not but attract the sculptor. Years of life outside the law: in shelters, in eternal fear, fear of their own shadow, who exists freely look into the eyes. People stopped rejoice and laughing! Permanent hunger, who reduced people to an animal state – this is what was at the first stage of the existence of the ghetto. And only the nomination of the total mass of leaders, the formation of national dignity, hope for salvation – was the factors that broke the situation and, ultimately, led to the celebration of life.

The composition so consists of two parts: the right, horizontally elongated, and called "Last way" and left, set up vertically called "Rebellion in ghetto". Many people did not understand and did not justify those who were badly afraid of death as cattle for a slaughterhouse. A group of Jews dressed in biblical clothes is moving in a certain direction. The movement is felt, but the faces of the running down. In them – humility to bayonets and helmets symbolizing Hitler’s executioners. And completely different atmosphere in the group of rebels. Their faces are drawn up, with feelings of confidence, determination and hope. The central figure of the rebel commander, Mordeha Anilevich, according to its strength, causing an association with the image of the biblical David of Michelangelo. The comparison of these groups is so polarly opposite that the impression of an electric discharge between them. Cream, summarized images, an expressive and expressive language make the composition of the completed and relief visible to the territory of the Memorial. The emotional charge invested into the sculptural composition organically prepares visitors to visit here the Located Museum, at the entrance to which it appears ..

Bas-relief "Walls of the catastrophe and heroism"

His author – Naftali Bezness, born in Essen (Germany) in 1924 and in the framework of the immigration of young people who arrived in Palestine on the most eve of World War II. Despite the fact that.Bezness, fortunately, did not experience a catastrophe personally for himself, his worldview is imbued with its awareness. Surrealist Artist, He portrays on the bas-relief of the test of the Jewish people with a number of allegorical symbols of fully decompressive. Four parts of the bas-relief symbolize: catastrophe, struggle, Alia and the revival of Israel. In the center of the first part – crematorium. Endless rows of people "Raw", standing at the last stage of his life path. Under them – Woman’s image with two Saturday candles in hand. The whole world of the Mother of the Mother of the Jewish was collapsed, all the holy desecrated and the Jewish world was summed up to the act of destroying the people. On the right there is an image of a wilt fish with a sliced ​​head. Fish is a symbol of silence and powerlessness, and her wings are angels who killed to the sky.

The second part is devoted to the struggle: the synagogue and place are embraced by a flame. However, a hand holding a weapon from burning chaos. This is a fighter burning on fire, but supporting a staircase, a symbol of elevation, revival and hope. The emerging association with the biblical ladder of Yakov brings us to the ancient spiritual roots of the people. Exit from the catastrophe – the subject of the third part of the bas-relief. Male father sails in an air boat heading the wings of the guardian angel. He, who had just escaped from hell, is already preparing for the fight, which is about to revive. And finally, the fourth part – the surviving reached its ultimate goal – he is in his own country, he is strong, as a lion, despite the tears, which he mourns the past. The Lion’s head breaks through the plant. This is a cactus, sabra, the symbol of children born in the revived country.

The tension from the perception of images portraged on the bas-relief progresses from a fragment to a fragment. The author managed to create a complete composition, which organically prepares the viewer-visitor to the inspection of the museum’s expositions.

I am convinced that tourists from all countries of the world have heard a lot, seen and know about the crimes of the Nazis. But as much as they are collected in this museum? – impossible to even imagine. For this you need to visit these halls. Museum staff prepared not only expositions from photographs, but also video and movies that can be viewed in various places of complex.

And we will go further and dwell about ..

Sculptural composition dedicated to Yanusha Korchak

During my childhood, when the book was still considered the best gift, Dad brought me a book about King Matiusha. This book, which I read was expelled, was marked by my first meeting with the Great Holy Holy: Teacher and Writer Januschi Korchak (Heinrik Goldshmidt – 1878 – 1942.G.). We will not retell his biography, we will dwell only on her final – he did not leave those children whose mentor was and when the train went to Trevilku, the Great Righteous preferred death, along with his pupils, in the gas chamber. Peer, he is so costs surrounded by guys. His sorrowful eyes are compared with them, and their hands hug everyone, no matter how morally supporting before the transition to eternity. And on all possible speakers lie pebbles … They testify to the memory of visitors, memory that will save the resulting generation.

And finally, another work of Nathan Rappoport. It…

Sculpture "IOV"

Job – one of the most colorful figures of Tanakha. The face and pose of the righteous, the temperamental modeling, express the tragic essence of the dialogue with God connected in the consciousness of the sculptor with a catastrophe. This is one of the most expressive and sincere works.Rappoporta. I have a feeling that even if it was the only one in the territory of the entire Memorial, it would be enough for the embodiment of the idea of ​​the suffering of the people in the name of faith, which ultimately and, ultimately leading to the celebration of life.

I do not think that there is another such place in the world where such extensive testimonies would be collected about the greatest catastrophe in the entire history of mankind – an attempt to destroy people. I do not think that a person can exist, the heart of which will not get drifts when visiting the memorial.

Movable work of memorial staff, this is not only a collection of materials about the victims of the crime of fascists – it would only turn it on the museum. No, their work is a historical analysis of the processes that came, the motives of the authors and numerous co-authors who participated in the execution of this bloody partition. Thanks to them, they were pronounced the words of repentance at the beginning of Protestant, and then Catholic churches. Their actions, including, was prepared by the visit of the Pope John Paul II on the Holy Land in 2000. Due to them, the dedication of the very existence of a disaster from consecutive and aggressive enemies in the face of the World Islamic Congress is perceived by a civilized world only as a malicious fanatic slander.

The World Research Institute of Crimes Against Humanity – VNIIPPCH – I see such a sign when entering the memorial and in it, I strongly recommend it to visit.

Useful information about the work of the Memorial:

Opening hours:
Sun. 09: 00-16: 30
PN. 09: 00-16: 30
T. 09: 00-16: 30
Cf. 09: 00-16: 30
NS. 09: 00-16: 30
PT. 09: 00-15: 00

Free admission.
Location: Jerusalem, Ha-Ar Ha-Zikaron (Mount Memory).
Phone: 972-26-443400.