The Yad Vashem

©Written by Negla Ross - 1993
This short story is the original work of Negla Ross. It can not be reproduced, copied, or used in any form without Negla's consent.
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It was an unusually chilly November morning. The last sight we would see during our trip to Israel was the national memorial to the Holocaust. The Yad Vashem was an unforgettable experience. I had always been interested in studying the Holocaust, so I had been waiting for this for a long time. As we were walking up to the main building, we passed all these trees planted in rows. Then, we began to notice little pieces of metal in the ground. Our chaperone stopped, and bent over to see what they were. They were nameplates. We automatically assumed that they were plates for either survivors, or victims of the Holocaust, and wondered why there weren't more. When we got to the main building, we asked our guide what the trees were planted for. She said the row was called "The Path of the Righteous," and the trees were either planted by or for people who had saved Jews from the Holocaust. The main building wasn't the actual high point of my experience. It was the Children's Memorial. I had always know that six million Jews died in the Holocaust, but I never realized that the total didn't include one million innocent children.

As I walked in, the first thing that caught my eye was a collage of children's faces. So many innocent children. Children just like my friends and I. Children that will never have the chance to go to high school, the prom, or graduate from college, or even have children of their own. They were children with no hope of a future, even though they were the future. I can still remember the face of one child. She looked about 3 or 4. She was missing her two front teeth, and she was smiling. I don't know why her face stands out in my mind, but I remember her, just as if she were my own child. How could anyone hate that beautiful little girl was all I could think. It was so hard to realize that little girl is now gone. At home in the cold dark earth. No proper burial, no tombstone, no people there to mourn her death, no company. Just all alone. I prayed for that little girl. I prayed that she was safe I her creator's arms. Safe from the cruelty and ignorance that killed her.

After that room, I entered a dark chamber. There was no light, except for one million candles that surrounded me. Those candles stood for the lights of all those children that once shone so brightly. One million lights that the world will never see again. As I walked through the room, one male and one female voice were constantly calling out the names of the children. I think that was the day I realized just how precious life really is. One moment, it's there, and the next it's gone.

As I came out of the building, I was crying. My friend Maurice who hadn't gone in asked me why I was crying so hard, and I told him I was crying for that girl in the picture; for the children who were robbed of their place in the world; and for those lights that were now extinguished, because of one man's ignorance.

Then we hugged and cried together.