As I looked closely into my guide's eyes, I could see the lingering pain and the unanswered question. Although she was much closer to the situation than I was, she still had no answer after many years.
It was my third visit to Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the Jewish dead of the Holocaust. Of all the world's memorials to this catastrophic break with civilization, Yad Vashem is most poignant in what it offers within the setting of the ancient land of Israel. You are sobered and shaken after a walk through the grounds.
The first stop for a visitor is the memorial to the children who perished in the camps and ghettos. One and a half million children perished in the Holocaust. The Hall of Candles, where the light is infinitely reflected through a display of mirrors, makes one think of God's promise that not one little one would be lost or forgotten. God holds their memories in eternity, awaiting the day when He will renew their lives in a better world with better promises. Every time I walk through this memorial I am reminded of the hope of the resurrection for the "dead, small and great" (Revelation 20:11-12).
The new Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem is more than one can absorb in one visit. On this recent trip I focused on fewer exhibits, taking in the layout of the building and the story it tells. Immediately upon entering, you see a wall of moving images from a vanished world—that of the Jews in Europe in the 1930s. You see children, young couples, old men and women going about their lives in places like Warsaw, Berlin and Prague. These would become the victims. They laugh, they sing and they live on the eve of a great tragedy. They did not know what was coming. We look back in time and struggle not to forget.
