Yad Vashem

Posted by Charles Thomson (Cheltenham, United Kingdom) on 27 June 2008 in Landscape & Rural.

Yad Vashem is probably the most emotional place I have ever visited. It is the remarkable work of design and architecture which compliments the museum to educate us about the horrors of the Holocaust.

The museum is gut wrenching - you are channeled down a huge concrete triangle, where you are shown various exhibits to illustrate what happened. These exhibits included videos, artifacts, photographs, and a room with one candle for every child killed (there are a staggering amount of candles).

However the one thing which will be forever etched on my mind was a large room where the floor was made out of thousands of children's leather shoes, neatly tessellated together, and covered with glass.

At the end of this triangular concrete tunnel of emotion, you come out of a small dark room, and are faced with the view in the above photograph. It is simply beautiful, worlds away from the dark concrete environment you have been in from the last hour - I had goose pimples on my goose pimples.

If you are ever in Jerusalem, I thoroughly recommend you go and visit Yad Vashem, it isn't nice, but it makes you think.

Comments (and criticism if I'm in a good mood) are welcome and encouraged

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