Yad VaShem

Recently one Sunday afternoon, I went to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial. Yad VaShem means "Monument of Names" or "Memorial of Names" from Isaiah 56 verse 5. Even to them I will give in My house And within My walls a place and a name Better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name That shall not be cut off. Photographs are not allowed inside the musuem. Below is one of the more famous outdoor monuments called "Korczak and the Ghetto's Children". The monument remembers Janusz Korczak who ran an orphanage in Warsaw, Poland. When the children were selected to go to a death camp called Treblinka, Janusz Korczak choose to go with them. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. John 15:13.

You can see small stones of respect placed on the monument. A Jewish tradition.

This is the entrance to the Children's Memorial dedicated to the 1.5 million children who were murdered in the Holocaust during World War II. Many people know that 6 million Jews were killed in Europe but not everyone may realize that 1/4 of them were just children.

The Children's Memorial is very dark inside with lit candles reflecting everywhere to symbolize 1.5 million candles. As you walk through it, names of children are broadcast over a speaker. This sign by the entrance is transparent but does tell of parents in California who dedicated the Children's Memorial to their son, Uriel, who was killed in Auschwitz.

Uriel.

A monumental graveyard on top of the Children's Memorial.

Below is the Warsaw Ghetto Fighters Plaza. On the left are some of the trees dedicated to Righteous Gentiles who risked their lives to save the persecuted Jews, God's Chosen People.
For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. Deuteronomy 7:6.

The Warsaw Ghetto Fighter's Memorial dedicated to those who chose to fight the German Army inside the ghetto. Every year on Holocaust Rememberance Day in Israel, this is the official place of dedication. This location is also where various world leaders come to "lay a wreath". This year alone has seen President Bush, President-elect Obama, President Sarkozy of France, etc.

The memorial below represents the "death marches" that forced upon the Jews as the Allied Armies approached some of the concentration camps.

The Warsaw Ghetto Plaza from the monuments.

The Righteous Gentile plaque for Corrie Ten Boom and her family. Corrie Ten Boom not only wrote The Hiding Place but lived it. She went on to author many more Christian books.

Corrie Ten Boom's Righteous Tree. The last time I was here, her tree was much larger and in a different location. As a new museum was being built a few years ago, several of the Righteous Gentile trees were re-located or re-planted.

A railroad car memorial to those who were deported.

I think the name of this monument is Cry in the Dark depicting a mother holding her baby.

The anguish, the tears, and disbelief are reflected in this monument.

This monument shows the skeletal bodies of men and women starving to death.

I also see the formation of a barbed-wire fence that kept everyone contained and captive.

Looking north to western Jerusalem from Yad VaShem.

Berry bushes along the path of the monuments.

This monument looks like a Rabbi carrying a Torah Scroll. God did choose the Jews to write down, record, and preserve His Word. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen. Romans 9:3-5.

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews just by issuing Visas to the Sweden. Raoul Wallenberg is also a little street in Jerusalem that connects the streets HaNaviim (Prophets) and Jaffa.

An engraved rock to the Righteous Gentiles. Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Matthew 25:45-46.

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) also learning the history of the Holocaust.

A natural cave with a rock enscripted 6,000,000.

This is the back of the entrance to Yad VaShem. A verse from Ezekiel 37, the Valley of the Dry Bones. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it and performed it," says the LORD.’" Ezekiel 37:14.

6,000,000 of God's Chosen killed in just a few years simply for being Jews. And yet the "time of Jacob's trouble" could very well still be ahead of them. Alas! For that day is great, So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, But he shall be saved out of it. Jeremiah 30:7.