What is a memorial?  In the Oxford Dictionary, a memorial is,” something that reminds people of a person, event etc.” In the story, “The Name”, by Aharon Megged, the grandfather has a grandson who was murdered in the Holocaust. Many years later, his other granddaughter becomes pregnant and the grandfather expects her to call her son after the murdered grandson, as a memorial for him. He chose this kind of memorial in order to keep the memory of the dead grandson alive. He wanted the family to remember the dead grandson every time they looked at the new grandson.

We chose 3 memorials out of many that Israel has erected to remember the Holocaust and people who were murdered.

1. The siren on the “Holocaust Day”. We chose this because it is a memorial that all Israeli people know and experience.

2. The Trip to Poland that high school students take. We chose this because we will soon be getting to the age when we will go on the trip and in addition, because we know so many people that the trip made an impact on them.

3. The project, which Steven Spielberg did where he taped holocaust survivors telling their stories. We chose this memorial because recently we watched one of the taped testimonies and understood its significance.

The siren is heard twice during the Holocaust Day, once in the evening at 8.00 o’clock and the second time the following day at 11.00. It lasts for one minute. During this minute, everyone in Israel, stops their lives and daily businesses to remember what happened in the Holocaust and the people who were murdered. This memorial was started by the first government, when Israel was established. 

We asked people what does the siren mean to them. We asked one woman by the name of Jenny Naomi Epstein. (Timmy’s mother) She answered, “I think that it is an amazing thing that all the people in a whole country stop their lives and think about something that happened in Jewish history. It has great meaning for me”

However, people and children who don’t really understand the meaning of the terrible things that happened in the Holocaust might not take this minute seriously and as a result not fulfill the aim of the siren.

We feel that it is very hard for us to suddenly stop our daily activities and really devote our thoughts to something that is so far away from our reality. One way to overcome this difficulty is to prepare ourselves beforehand by reading something about the Holocaust or hearing a testimony

In these pictures you can see people stopping their daily activities for the minute of the siren.  

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Most high schools send their 12^th graders on a trip to Poland. They go for one week to 10 days and they travel around Poland visiting concentration camps, villages, and other Jewish memorial sites. Usually a witness goes along and tells his /her personal story as they walk through the camps. Sometimes the group even plans their trip around the witness’s experiences, or goes to visit the places that the people in the group’s families lived or went through. This is one of the only memorials, which will have very strong meaning to the next generations because it is so concrete.

There are however students who decide not to go, because they don’t want to give any money to the Polish government.

We understand these thoughts however we think that these students lose out on something very important and meaningful.

Pictures from the trip to Poland

Steven Spielberg, who is a Jewish producer and a film director, started up a holocaust foundation, in which he taped almost all holocaust survivors, from all around the world, telling their stories. The foundation is named “The Shoah Visual History Foundation”, and was started in 1994 by Steven Spielberg as a result of requests from Holocaust survivors, wanting to keep their stories and memories alive for the next generation. As a result Spielberg sent film crews, all around the world, in order to locate the survivors, and interview them. Every survivor was taped for three hours, telling his stories and memories of the horrors he went through. Eventually, The Shoah Visual History Foundation, succeeded in getting   51,000 or more testimonies. The taped interviews were put in digital library systems. This project was established in order to keep all the memories and stories from eyewitnesses, alive. The next generations won’t only learn the holocaust through history books, but they also will be able to hear and see testimonies from actual people that went through those horrors. 

We watched the testimonies of our relatives. The testimonies were very powerful, because we actually were able to listen to stories from people that experienced terrible things. We understood the importance of giving testimony so that we won’t just learn about the Holocaust from history books but also from real people. We also felt that it helped the survivors themselves because now they know that their stories and experiences will not be forgo

After investigating these 3 memorials, we feel most connected to the trip to Poland, where pupils go to the actual places of events. When someone learns about the Holocaust through history books or articles, he doesn’t really understand the meaning. He can’t really identify with those who were there.  When someone goes to Poland, his life stops for a couple of weeks and he really devotes all his time, thoughts and energy to remembering and understanding the horrors of the Holocaust. He feels it with his flesh and blood. He really goes back in time to all those camps and sites.

In conclusion, a nation that doesn’t have a past doesn’t have a future. We want to emphasize the significance and importance of remembering what happened in the holocaust and the survivors with what they went through. Furthermore, it is important to cherish the evidence and memories for the future generations.