Day One - Yesterday

We had the hotel wake us at 7, which was a good thing, and we hurred through the David Citadel breakfast buffet, so that we could meet our friends at 8:45 at Yad Vashem. We made it by cab with a few minutes to spare.

We had been at Yad Vashem in 1999, although we had not toured the museum itself. We had been in the children's building and seen the eternal flame, and then went to the library to register Edie's family members who were lost during the Holocaust.

A new museum opened last year, and we were told by all who had seen it that it should not be missed. And they were right.

Yad Vashem is by and large a very solemn place. The pathways through the garden of the righteous where placques commemorate gentiles who saved Jews during the war period, the children's memorial, where five candles reflected through an infinite number of mirrors in an otherwise dark building, looking like so many stars on a clear night, and the remembrance building where the eternal flame flickers over a listing of death camps.

We can't speak to the old museum. The new museum is, in fact, extraordinary. It is underground, and is centered on a single corridor, which serves as a spine for the exhibit halls and extends, I would say, from 600 - 800 feet. You cannot walk the whole corridor, however, as it is broken up by a number of low exhibits (so that your view is not obstructed), which force you to go through the exhibit rooms on both sides of the corridor in order to proceed. The walls of the corridor are triangular, so that the top of the corridor is a line of glass windows coming to a point; there is no roof. The corridor narrows as you go along it. So, to commmorate the Shoach, you are forced underground, with no light except for the band of hope/light at the top, walking along an ever narrowing corridor.

The exhibits are extraordinary as well. Not so much for the story line (it is what you would expect), but for the amount of incredible material on display (from pre-Hitler Europe through post-Reich immigration to Israel. Nothing is left out (i.e., no subjects appear taboo).

And it is not only the objects that they have, but the amount of objective documentation of every sort. Including unlimited numbers of photographs, and a tremendous amount of movies, both original footage and survivors' testimonies.

How long would it take to absorb everything in this museum? I would guess 2 or 3 days. Would you get bored? Not for a minute.

Our guide was Nurit. It was her first Yad Vashem tour. She was terrific.

We had a quick and not very satisfactory lunch in the cafe, and then went on to the Old City. Again for Nurit's tour. The only problem was the weather, which turned very chilly, very windy and very wet. But that did not stop Nurit.

We visited the Arab market, the Cardo, the Burt House Museum, the Temple Institute and the Archeological Park.

More later.