There are some things in this life that we all just have to experience, whether we want to or not. Today was one of those times. We went this afternoon to the Holocaust museum here in Jerusalem. We all know what happened, so no detail work is necessary; however, seeing the pictures, the detailed descriptions of actual people, pictures of women, and the pictures of the children...oh it was just unbearable. About half-way through the exhibit I actually felt like my breath was being taken away. The feeling is absolutely overwhelming. Words simply cannot describe the horror and monstrosity of it all.
And that's the thing isn't it? We hear of someone killing one person in cold blooded murder and we demand justice! We may have even known that person. Justice must be done to the person who killed the other. We hear of serial killers and we're astonished! How can one person kill 24 people? It's so shocking that we sit in absolute amazement. And then we hear of someone that killed millions of people. What do we do with that? Our minds just simply cannot comprehend what millions of people looks like.
Imagine a football stadium full of people - take Neyland Stadium in Knoxville. It holds over 100 thousand people. Now imagine that someone kills all the people in the entire stadium. And now multiply that number times 60. Can you imagine it? We can't can we? So hearing about the Holocaust all my life and reading about it is one thing. But seeing the exhibit in person made it all the more real to me. Seeing the thousands of faces, seeing the mothers, the fathers, and the children...it was just overwhelming. About 3/4 of the way through the exhibit I had to leave. I couldn't bear to see any more. When I left the building there were several others outside weeping, including myself. I have no words to describe how it made me feel.
While it was just horrifying in so many ways, I think it was necessary for me to see it. I think it's necessary that we all see it. Why? Because it teaches us something about humanity. We learn about ourselves, we learn about how terrible we as humans can be, we learn about suffering, we gain insight into tyranny, and we learn that there should never be a chance where something like that ever takes place again. This is one of those things that we hate seeing, but something that we must see. It's a place that makes us feel overwhelmed to the point that we can't handle it any longer, and this is the point where we learn something about ourselves. When we see the faces of the people and the children suffering and being murdered, the images make it real in our minds. We no longer think of it in terms of millions, we think of it in terms of the child in the stripped pajamas. We think of it in terms of the people that hid in attics and church steeples. This takes away the impersonal aspect of it and makes it very personal. Experiences like today take us out of our comfort zone and make us very uncomfortable; but, sometimes that's exactly where we need to be.
On a lighter note, after the exhibit, we walked up to the Suq and did some shopping. I can now say that after 2 weeks I am the master shopper at the Suq! Everyone that was walking with me was asking me to negotiate for them because I know the art of haggling. Yes! I can haggle! What I've discovered is that they generally want half of what they're asking, so if they say 100, they really want 50 or 60, which is a fair price. I haggled a guy down from 120 shekels to 50 on a suitcase my friend wanted to buy :) I felt pretty proud of that one. Ha1 Yes, the Suq master!!!
And today was the first day that we've been here that I didn't take one picture! A new record!
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