My Broken Heart

In my post on November 12th, I showed you the Yad Vashem pin I purchased and I promised to write more about the holocaust this month. January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This day has several names, all meaning the same thing. Yad Vashem is the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, Israel.

The Children’s Memorial is a small building on the Yad Vashem Campus.

Cut into the outside wall is a sculpture of an adult surrounded by several children. This man was a Christian teacher of several Jewish children. When the soldiers came to take the children he refused to let them go. He was told if he didn’t let them go, he would die. He went with the children and died with them in a concentration camp.

As I entered the building there were signs saying to keep hold of the railing, keep walking, and do not stop.

A few steps later I was in a dark room. There are no pictures in the room as shown in this picture,

There was a single candle in the middle of the room and, I think, hundreds of small mirrors. The mirrors reflected the one candle and they reflect the lights of other mirrors.

The reflected lights symbolize all the future generations who never lived due to the death of one child.

As I walked along the path through the memorial (about 60 feet), I hear the name, age, and hometown of one child killed in the Holocaust. There is an estimated 1.5 million children who died during WWII.

One of the people in my group did some calculations. It would take over seven years before the names would start being repeated.

Many, many of the people coming out of the memorial, including myself, are wiping tears from their eyes. I have tears now as I remember that memorial.

This is not one of my pictures. It is from the Yad Vashem museum. I chose this picture because it better shows the deep meanings of the Children’s memorial. Visitors are not allowed to take pictures inside the memorial and most of my own from outside the memorial did not come out well because I had trouble focusing my camera.

Yad Vashem Memorial Pin

The Yad Vashem Memorial Pin

One of my most treasured purchases in Israel is this Yad Vashem Memorial Pin because it has so many deep meanings and memories.

Yad Vashem is Israel’s official memorial to all who died in the Holocaust. The Jews who died are remembered as are the Gentiles who helped them in the fight against Nazi Germany.

The blurb inside the packaging says “The barbed wire stem recalls the pain and trauma of the Holocaust, while the leaves stemming from the wire symbolize the rebirth and hope that emerged in the wake of this unparalleled tragedy. Wearing this pin expresses your commitment to remembering the past in order to ensure a better future for our children.”

I’ve worn a pin like this several times. I should say I’ve worn and broken pins like this one. Now I keep it safely in the packaging. The pin is made of soft pewter and is fragile.

Even the easy breakage of the pin adds to the meaning for me as I listen to the chaos and hate circling our world today. So many people behave as though they only see the barb wire and ignore the leaves. For me, as a Christian, I see Jesus in the leaves. He is my hope.

NOTE: This was on my heart today when I set up a different blog, so I changed the subject. I will be blogging about how we felt when we visited Yad Vashem in January.