Holocaust

Hello everyone!

To start off, here are some pictures from yesterday's events, starting with the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Bethlehem:The Church of the Nativity
The road to Jericho
The view from the monastery on the Mount of the Temptations

Today was a relatively uneventful day, but then again "relatively uneventful" on this trip means not including 5 museums, some churches, and many random encounters with strangers. However, last night I had a great night hanging out with my German and Swiss buddies. I had a felafel for dinner and then hung out with them for happy hour at Mike's Place. It was a great night and, as usual, the discussions ranged widely, from German politics to Uma Thurman (guess who brought that last one up). Daniel, the Swiss guy, left today, but I think I'll meet up with him again in his native country.

In order to get to Yav Vashem, the Holocaust memorial area in Jerusalem, I had to wake up early and take my first Israeli bus- not that much different than any other bus, honestly. When I got there, I waited around for about 10 minutes waiting for the museum to open when Romy arrived! To clarify things for the reader's sake, Romy is on a trip called Birthright, which is an all-expenses-paid trip for any Jewish young person. It's 10 days and the groups, which are created based on region, visit everything from Eilat (a resort town in the south) to an army base at the border with Lebanon. It sounds great and it's an amazing opportunity for people who want to see the Promised Land (if they're Jewish).

So after a gleeful reunion with Romy I unofficially joined their tour group- definitely a good choice. First, we went to an auditorium with about 2 other Birthright groups from the US and listened to a fascinating 1.5hr testimony from a woman who had been an 18-year old Jew in Holland during WWII. She joined the Dutch Resistance and narrowly escaped deportation to a camp three separate times and wrote a book about it, called "The Tulips Are Red". After hearing just a fraction of her story, I really want to read her book. Hearing holocaust survivors firsthand is always an eye-opening and sometimes horrifying experience.

After that we entered the museum with our own guide. Even the architecture of the museum itself is swamped in symbolism. For example the main hallway of the museum is triangular, which is meant to represent half of a Star of David, since almost half of the world's Jews died in the Holocaust, and also to simulate walls closing in, as it happened for the Jews in WW2. They have plenty of amazing displays, video testimonies of survivors, and emotional quotes. The final piece is a big circular room covered in bookshelves holding identical black binders. In the binders are written testimonies of survivor's knowledge of who died in the Holocaust. They have collected 3.5 million names of the 6 million killed overall. It was definitely a sobering sight.

Our final stop in the complex was the children's' memorial, which was a dark room with candles in it and mirrors to reflect the candles' light millions of times, to represent the millions of children killed. Even more poignant was the reading aloud of the children's names and ages from some speakers. Tragic.

Then it was time once again to part ways with a friend. Although Romy's group leaves tonight back to the States, she is staying with some family here in Israel for a couple days. It was great to see her and share experiences.

Once I was back on my own, I walked back to the bus stop, asked a couple people how to get to my destination, and then hopped on the bus. I was headed to Mt. Zion with the purpose of seeing two thing- Oskar Schindler's grave, and the room where the Last Supper took place. I had to walk a little to get there, but I found it alright and peeped around the Last Supper room first, which was lacking in much fanfare. It was interesting though. I then attempted to visit Schindler's grave and despite there being a man with the keys right in front of me, they would not let me in 30 minutes after closing. Oh well- I guess I have reason to come back here now! Haha.

Slightly irritated in my loss, I ate a felafel to calm my nerves and nourish my body. It worked, and I continued down in to the City of David, which is where the original Jerusalem, the one that David and Solomon ruled over, was located. It's a national park, but due to too much development it's not that spectacular, although I'm sure I would have liked it better if I had brought a swimsuit and could have walked through a tunnel that delivers a spring's water into the town. It was interesting nonetheless. From there I took an arduous trek here to the Internet cafe, where I ponder my next move. Here's a picture from the City of David:

Tomorrow I'm getting up pretty early to get a bus to the Sea of Galilee, around which I will putz until I board a bus to Nazareth where I will be staying at- get this- a convent for two nights! Haha, I'm so pumped. The reason I'm not staying the night in Galilee is twofold- one is that everything was full, and two is that Shabbatt, or the sabbath day, starts on Friday evening and goes to Saturday evening, during which time NOTHING is open and barely any buses run.

Jerusalem was and is an amazing city, and I feel honored to have visited it for so long. I hope someday to come back, however perhaps with a tour group that would have better transport and guides. But for this trip, it was perfect. I'm looking forward to North Israel too! By the way, yesterday was the one month anniversary of this trip! And a month from now I will be beginning a 3-day rush to get ready for college. Life happens quickly, people. Keep that in mind.

Thanks for reading and remember: comments make me a happy Westerner.