Around Mt. Herzl

Yad vaShem, meaning “a memorial and a name” (tel. 75 16 11), is the most moving of Israel’s Holocaust museums. It’s actually a complex of buildings. Start at the historical museum, which uses photographs, documents, and relics to paint a frightening and tragic picture of the events leading up to the Holocaust and of the Holocaust itself. The exhibit ends with a simple, powerful memorial: symbolic tombs upon which are written the number of Jews who were killed in each country, and finally a tiny shoe that belonged to one of the Holocaust’s youngest victims. The Hall of Names (open Sun.-Thurs. 10am-2pm, Fri. 10am-12:30pm) contains an agonizingly long list of all known Holocaust victims. Visitors may fill out a Page of Testimony, recording the name and circumstances of death of family members killed by the Nazis.

Another building houses a ner tamid (eternal fire) to memorialize the Holocaust’s victims, with the name of each concentration camp engraved into the floor. The art museum nearby houses drawings and paintings made in the ghettos and in the concentration camps by Jewish prisoners; in the museum and on its grounds are a number of evocative works by sculptor Elsa Pollock. By far the most powerful part of Yad vaShem is the stirring Children’s Memorial, where mirrors are used to create a spark of light for every youth who perished; a recorded voice recites die name and age of each young victim.