Between Holocaust and Reawakening
By Lily Galili
Two seats and a world separated Paris Archbishop Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger and Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yonah Metzger at the front row of yesterday's ceremony dedicating the new Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem.
As a child, Lustiger was a Jew, the son of a Polish family in France who is now being named as a leading candidate for pope. His presence at the ceremony seemed to embody one of the possible universal responses to the Holocaust. He was there both by virtue of his present function and as a survivor who lost his mother and most of his family before converting to Catholicism at the age of 13.
"I think this is an event that touches first of all Jews, but has importance for all of humanity," he said a few minutes before the official ceremony began. "Yes, for me, this is also a private moment, in which I think about my mother." Asked if he feels Jewish at such a time, the cardinal said, "Yes, that is what I am, my way."
When the children's choir took the stage and a rendition of the song "Everyone has a name" was played, survivor Helmut Spritzer visibly cringed in his seat. The German-born man thought about another orchestra, the one at Theresiendstadt, in which he played to survive. He, like many of the survivors who came from overseas to the ceremony, granted, by virtue of their presence, a natural answer to the question whether Zionism and the State of Israel are the only response to the Holocaust - a message the Foreign Ministry wanted to deliver throughout the event.
Spritzer was 8 years old when Hitler came to power, and from Theresiendstadt, he was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There, by virtue of his fluency in German, he survived as a shoe shiner for German officers. Now he is a wealthy man, living in Monte Carlo, but uses the word "we" when talking about Israel with a fatherly pride. He did not choose to live here, but he regards Israel as a home.
All these themes seeped into the speeches at the ceremony that took place almost exactly 60 years after the end of World War II. Even Israel no longer speaks about the Holocaust in one voice. A new spirit now blows from the new building, a breath of openness that was missing from the old concrete fortress. Universalist and Jewish, Zionist and humanist, they all merged in the speeches in a way that was not possible in the past.
"As a people and as humans, from this mountain in Jerusalem, we shall say and repeat the divine commandment `Thou shalt not murder'," was the universal message at the end of the speech given by Shevach Weiss, the chairman of the board of trustees of Yad Vashem, and a survivor himself.
"The State of Israel is the guarantee that the Jewish people will never again know a Holocaust," said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, but those words seemed to be dwarfed by the simple, natural picture shown to the 2,000-strong audience of dignitaries, officials and survivors. On a long, narrow screen above the podium, images of people and letters they wrote were displayed. Private flashes that merged into the tale of tragedy in the life of a people.
As darkness fell, the black-and-white images on the screen merged with the flickering lights of Jerusalem's homes in the distance, becoming one. No scholarly analysis of the "lessons of the Holocaust" could express with greater intensity the connection created here between the Holocaust and the Reawakening.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, presidents, prime ministers and delegations from 40 countries arrived to take part in the dedication ceremonies. Many were present at the ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the subsequent UN ceremony. Japan was missing from yesterday's ceremony. It was not invited, apparently because of the comparison the Japanese make between the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Holocaust. "It was Israel's decision, and I have no problem with it," said Japanese ambassador Jun Yokota, who attended the ceremony.
"The Holocaust is one of the tragic events of human history, and we must preserve it in our memories. We also deliberate how to mark the memory of Hiroshima for the coming generations, and we translated the lesson into pacifism. After all, the most correct way to prevent horrors such as these is to prevent war. But it is not comparable to the Holocaust."
Jerusalem was under siege yesterday because of the unusual number of foreign dignitaries, a number not seen in Jerusalem since the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, some said with satisfaction. But it was a sad happiness, it should be said. It would have been so much nicer to have seen them all here for a happier occasion.
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