Israel s soil is sown with hundreds of holy places. The complex

Transcription

1 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem: Martyrs Ashes as a Focus of Sanctity 1 Doron Bar Israel s soil is sown with hundreds of holy places. The complex reality of a landscape replete with sanctified symbols is a corollary of the complex history of the region and its sanctity for generations of adherents of the three monotheistic faiths Jews, Christians, and Muslims. When the Zionist Movement began to operate in Palestine, it too created holy places of national complexion there. Thus, holy places such as Tel Hai, Modi in, and Massada were added to the many religious symbols that populate the landscape at issue. 2 After the State of Israel was established in 1948, various agents continued to operate in this landscape with immense resolve, establishing many symbols of sacred reference around the country sites of battles, monuments, towers, etc. 3 This would seem to be the correct background for the study, among other things, of the integration of Holocaust commemorative sites, places that may be defined concurrently as memorials and shrines, into the Israeli landscape. In Israel s first decades, Holocaust commemorative sites were established in various localities cities, towns, cooperative and collective settlements and much has been written on the topic. 4 This ar- 1 I thank Dr. Assaf Seltzer and Dr. Mooli Brog for their remarks as this article was being written. 2 Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); Nachman Ben-Yehuda, The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995). 3 Maoz Azaryahu, Rituals of State: Celebrations of Independence and Commemoration of the Fallen (Hebrew) (Sede Boqer: Ben-Gurion Research Center, 1995). 4 Mooli Brog, The Stone Will Scream from the Wall : Monumental Commemoration of the Holocaust in the Israeli Landscape, What Was That Word Sho a? 1

2 2 Doron Bar ticle centers on how those who created this commemorative landscape confronted the question of legitimizing the existence of these memorial sites on the Israeli scene and the challenge of cementing their two forms of sanctity, the religious and the civil, at one and the same time. Unlike Tel Hai, Yad Mordechai, and Sha ar Hagai places that derived their power from their essence as locations of sacrifice and death in Israel, often places where those who fell are buried Israel s Holocaust commemorative sites have no geographic physical connection with the places in Europe where the devastation occurred. In the early statehood years, many tackled the problem of how to legitimize the commemoration of such ghastly events that took place so far from Israel, a place that did its best to emphasize, contrarily, the heroism that had been displayed in the Holocaust and to soft-pedal the mass killings and the destruction of so many Jewish communities. These dilemmas are represented in the discussion of two Holocaust commemorative sites the Chamber of the Holocaust, established in 1949 next to King David s Tomb on Mount Zion, abutting Jerusalem s Old City, and Yad Vashem, established by an act of the Knesset in 1953 in western Jerusalem. Even though discussions about establishing Yad Vashem began before the end of World War II, when the magnitude of the disaster started to come into focus, the construction of this institution was delayed. Once Yad Vashem was established, however, and after construction of the various buildings on the Mount of Remembrance began, the site became the central national institution for the commemoration of Holocaust and heroism in Israel. The Chamber of the Holocaust, established before Yad Vashem, focused on commemoration of a religious nature and went about things on a much smaller scale in all respects. Still, despite the vast differences between the sites, it is of interest to compare them. This comparative analysis lies at the focus of the remarks that follow. Elsewhere I discuss the evolution of King David s Tomb and the Chamber of the Holocaust in the 1950s and 1960s and the tension that came about during those years between Yad Vashem officials and various elements in Religious Zionism concerning the right way to commemorate the Holocaust. 5 Here I wish to focus (Hebrew) The Holocaust in the Israeli Cultural Discourse, Massuah Yearbook 32 (2006), pp Doron Bar, Holocaust Commemoration in Israel during the 1950s: The Holocaust

3 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 3 on a specific form of commemoration, the burial of victims ashes at the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem, and the discord that developed between these commemorative entities concerning the use of these remains. The discussion that follows centers on the way various players used these ashes to establish the legitimacy and sanctity of the two commemorative and memorial sites the Chamber of the Holocaust and the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem. Martyrs Remains and Landsmanshaftn In the first years after World War II, survivors of the Holocaust living in Palestine expressed their public grief mainly through community patterns of memorialization. The memorial assemblies and days were usually based on the settings communities, villages, towns, and cities that the survivors had inhabited until World War II began. Hundreds of Landsmanshaftn (associations of immigrants of common origin) that were active in Israel at this time provided survivors from these communities with a convenient framework for the task of memorializing and commemorating the Holocaust. These community entities introduced memorial days, lit candles, organized the recitation of the Kaddish, and sponsored conferences, among other activities. 6 It is true that in April 1951 the Knesset proclaimed the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan as Holocaust and Ghetto Uprising Day. But despite its official trappings, this memorial day did not attract widespread public observance until much later, mainly because of the inability of the authorities to create an appropriate setting for commemoration and the absence of a long-standing tradition relating to this day. 7 In the absence of an agreed-upon memorial day, many Holocaust survivors continued to observe separate and community memorial rituals in the 1950s. Thus, the national grief that embraced all Jews atomized and split into Cellar on Mount Zion, Jewish Social Studies, 12:1 (2005), pp ; idem, Sanctifying Land: Jewish Holy Places in Israel (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Yizhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 2009), pp See, for example, Memorial Ceremony for the Ten Martyrs of Zduńska Wola (Hebrew), Yedioth Ahronoth, March 17, In this matter, see Roni Stauber, The Holocaust in Israeli Public Debate in the 1950s: Ideology and Memory (London: Vallentine Mitchel 2007).

4 4 Doron Bar little days of national and community Landsmanshaftn. 8 Initially, too, for lack of graves and tombstones, these memorial ceremonies did not conform to conventional Jewish gravesite traditions. 9 Slowly, however, some communities and organizations introduced rituals at cemeteries, at community monuments, or in various halls. It is against this background that one should view the use that members of the communities made of remains that had been brought from Europe, usually by community members themselves, as focal points of sanctity and gathering. The burial of ashes and other remains in various locations, including cemeteries, often served as a basis for the construction of monuments near places where members of the community lived, thereby providing a focal point of remembrance and sanctity around which community members gathered. The monument erected by survivors from Zduńska Wola in 1947 in the old cemetery of Tel Aviv appears to be one of the first community memorials to victims of the Holocaust in Palestine/Israel. 10 Newspapers of the time carried reports about a container of ashes that had been brought to Palestine in 1946 by a former resident of Zduńska Wola who had survived the Chełmno extermination camp. Inhabitants of Zduńska Wola (along with many other Jews) had been murdered at this camp, whence the remains were smuggled into Palestine. A symbolic funeral took place on 16 Elul (September 12, 1946), the anniversary of the liquidation of the Zduńska Wola ghetto, with the participation of members of the community and many others. The mass funeral procession set out from the central synagogue of the Hadar Hacarmel neighborhood in Haifa, 11 paused at the Great Synagogue of Tel Aviv, and continued to the old cemetery of Tel Aviv, where the container was interred. 12 Some time later, a small marble memorial stone, paid for by 8 Rabbi Menahem Hacohen, A Standard Memorial Day for All Jews (Hebrew), Hatzofe, May 28, Dalia Ofer, What and How Much of the Holocaust Should Be Remembered? Holocaust Commemoration in Israel s First Decade, in Anita Shapira, ed., Independence, the First Fifty Years: An Interdisciplinary Collection of Articles (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1998), pp Judith Tydor Baumel, Everlasting Memory : Post-Holocaust Prayers and Days of Mourning in Memory of Holocaust Victims (Hebrew), Sinai 101 (1988), pp The Ashes of the Jews of Zduńska Wola (Hebrew), Davar, September 10, Box of Ashes from Chelmno Camp to Be Buried in Tel Aviv (Hebrew), Yedioth Ahronoth, September 8, Announcement from the Haifa Chief Rabbinate and

5 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 5 survivors from this community, was erected at this location to serve as a place of gathering. In 1949, for example, a ceremonial convocation at the grave of the martyrs ashes took place there, as did the ceremonial writing of the last parchments of a Torah scroll and ritual burial of parchments stained with our martyrs blood. 13 The pattern established by the survivors of Zduńska Wola memorializing communities destroyed in the Holocaust by burying victims ashes and erecting a monument over them recurred afterwards. Members of such communities somehow obtained remnants of victims, often brought by a survivor from Europe. The burial ritual then focused on these remains, the authenticity of which was not always clear, creating a focal point for pilgrimage. In 1947, ashes brought from Majdanek by a member of the Lida community were buried in the cemetery at Nahalat Yitzhak, on the border between Givatayim and Tel Aviv. 14 In 1950, three community monuments were constructed, two at the Nahalat Yitzhak cemetery and one in the graveyard on Trumpeldor Street, both in Tel Aviv. The latter was erected by a private individual who had lost his family in the Warsaw ghetto. In 1949, while on a visit to Poland, he smuggled two bags of bone fragments and ashes back to Israel by diplomatic pouch. On April 19, 1950, the seventh anniversary of the eruption of the ghetto uprising, the remains were interred in a burial plot that had been dug out next to the Zduńska Wola memorial stone. 15 Survivors from Zagłębie, Poland, based the sanctity of the monument they built at the Nahalat Yitzhak cemetery on ashes brought from extermination camps in Poland and buried in the new location in At the cemetery in Beersheba, two monuments were erected over a grave of ashes that had been brought to Israel from Poland by a survivor who had gone back to Poland for this purpose. 17 The practice continued into the Haifa Jewish Community Committee, September 9, 1946, Central Zionist Archive (CZA), KRU/ Advertisement from Association of Survivors of Zduńska Wola in Haifa, September 11, 1949, CZA, KRU/ Commemorating the Martyrs of Lida (Hebrew), Davar, September 1, Judith Tydor Baumel, Everlasting Memory : Holocaust Commemoration by the Individual and the Community (Hebrew), Iyyunim bi-tqumat Yisrael: Collection on the Problems of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the State of Israel 5 (1995), pp Memorial to the Fallen of Zagłębie (Hebrew), Yedioth Ahronoth, May 9, Hanna Yablonka, Clashing Identities, Complementary Identities Survivors, Holocaust Remembrance, and Jewish Identity (Hebrew), Massuah 28 (2000), p. 310.

6 6 Doron Bar 1960s; for example, in 1966 survivors from the town of Korzec (Korets), Volhynia, buried the remains of Holocaust victims at the Nahalat Yitzhak cemetery, a short distance from a monument to the victims of Treblinka. 18 Unquestionably, survivors from various communities made strenuous efforts at this time to bring ashes from Europe to Israel for burial. Survivors from Vilna brought their relatives ashes to be buried in Israel in Ashes from the Holocaust, however, were not buried in cemeteries only. In a ceremony conducted by the Jews of Safed in 1949, various remains were interred at the burial crypt of the Mishnaic sage Rabbi Yehuda ben Ila i, a short distance from town. Another burial ceremony took place near the tomb of Rabbi Tarfon in Kadita. 20 In these cases, the ashes were interred in traditional shrines that the Jews of Safed had been visiting for generations; apparently they thought it better to bury them there than at the municipal old cemetery. The burial of Holocaust victims ashes was also central in similar attempts to establish Holocaust commemorative sites abroad. In the early 1950s, the ashes of victims of Auschwitz were focal in plans for the Holocaust memorial in Paris. In 1946 a ceremonial burial of ashes from Auschwitz took place at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, and a large mound of ashes is a central feature of the main monument at the Majdanek extermination camp. 21 In early 1949 the rush to bring artifacts, ashes, and bones of Holocaust victims from Europe to Israel gained momentum. 22 Torah scrolls 18 Mordechai Boneh, Transferring Martyrs Ashes (Hebrew), Davar, November 2, Demanding the Transfer to Israel of the Ashes of the Martyrs of Vilna (Hebrew), Davar, September 27, 1962; letter by Moshe Feigenberg to Yitzhak Rabin, January 19, 1975, Israel State Archive (ISA), G-18/ Zev Vilnay, Holy Monuments in the Land of Israel (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1951), p. 127; Yosef Haglili, Book of Meron (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: selfpublished, 1988), p A Memorial Home in Paris for the Exterminated Jews (Hebrew), Hatzofe, February 25, 1951; Program for a Monument to the Unknown Jewish Victim en Route to Fulfillment, CZA, KKL5/19079; Renée Poznanski, French Jewry and the Holocaust, in Dan Michman, ed., The Holocaust in Jewish History: Historiography, Historical Consciousness and Interpretations (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2005), p Mooli Brog, A Yad [Memorial] for Soldiers, a Vashem [Name] for Victims: Attempts of the National Committee to Establish Yad Vashem (Hebrew), Cathedra 119 (Spring 1996), pp On the importance of gathering all ashes

7 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 7 and other sacred artifacts were removed from destroyed communities in Europe to Israel and proposals concerning a commitment to the interment of victims ashes in the soil of Israel began to be heard. Hillel Kook, a Knesset member representing the Herut Party, was one of the first to propose the gathering of Holocaust victims ashes from all mass graves in the Diaspora; he suggested that this be done concurrently with the re-interment of the remains of Herzl. 23 Burial of the Ashes of Austrian Jewry The arrival of a shipment of ashes from Austria in the second half of 1949 was an important watershed in the treatment of such remains in Israel. For the first time, the question of ashes and their burial became the concern of the Israeli public at large and not only of survivors from specific communities. The symbolic burial procession piqued intensive interest in the Holocaust and its significance in the general Israeli public arena. Back in 1948 Simon Wiesenthal, representing the Committee of Austrian Jews and acting on behalf of the World Zionist Congress, requested permission to bring these remains to Israel for burial. The ashes, Wiesenthal reported, had been gathered after the Germans removed [them] to the fields next to the Mauthausen camp in late 1944, and since [Mauthausen] had been the biggest camp in all of Austria, the ashes of our martyrs formed a huge mound. 24 Initially, it seems, the intention of Wiesenthal and the Committee of Austrian Jews was to bring the ashes to Israel and place them in the middle of a memorial site that they were planning to establish. According to the plans, the focal feature of the mausoleum was a sarcophagus where the ashes would be placed. 25 The plans fell through for various reasons, possibly and bones of those slaughtered in Europe and bringing them to Israel, see Yehuda Dominitz, A Plan to Bring Our Martyrs Bones to Israel (Hebrew), Hatzofe, June 7, Dominitz, ibid. 24 The Jews in Austria after the Liberation (Hebrew) Ha-yom, June 29, See file of plans headed, Draft of the Mausoleum for 200,000 Jews Who Died in the German Concentration Camps in Austria, Architect: S. Wiesenthal, Yad Vashem Archive (YVA), M.9/69.

8 8 Doron Bar related to pressure against Wiesenthal from various members of the Yad Vashem Directorate. 26 Initially, the organizers of the ceremony gave thought to performing the burial in Tel Aviv, of all places. With trembling of sanctity and appreciation, we received your proposal that the city and the Municipality of Tel Aviv accept on deposit and for safekeeping the chest containing the thirty urns of our martyrs ashes, 27 the Tel Aviv Municipality acceded to Wiesenthal s request to have the ashes buried in the first Hebrew city. Mordechai Shenhavi, progenitor of the idea of Yad Vashem, opposed the idea vehemently: From many serious and weighty standpoints, the martyrs ashes should be taken to the city where our national commemorative enterprise will be established Jerusalem. 28 Wiesenthal, too, eventually stated, We, too, believe that, for political and national reasons at the current time, we should make every effort to gather in Jerusalem every object and enterprise that symbolizes the connection between our Diaspora and the State of Israel. 29 We are thinking of organizing a public funeral that will simultaneously symbolize the exodus from Austria in an expanded ceremony. 30 Since the plans for the re-interment in Jerusalem of Herzl s remains were in midstream just then, it was proposed that the ashes be delivered aboard the plane that would bring to Israel the remains of the Visionary of the Jewish State. 31 The committee that was planning Herzl s 26 Discussion at the Yad Vashem secretariat of Simon Wiesenthal s proposal for establishment of committees for the commemoration of Jews in Austria and the relocation of these Jews ashes from Linz to Yad Vashem, YVA, AM.1/22; letter from Theodor Ha Thalgi to the Center of the Yad Vashem Society, April 6, 1948, YVA, AM.1/ Response of the Tel Aviv Municipality to Wiesenthal s request, November 12, 1948, YVA, AM.1/ Mordechai Shenhavi, Yad Vashem Secretariat, to Simon Wiesenthal, December 19, 1948, YVA, AM.1/ Simon Wiesenthal to Tel Aviv Municipal Council, January 10, 1949, YVA, AM.1/ Simon Wiesenthal to Mordechai Shenhavi, January 10, 1949, ISA, G-2/ Mordechai Shenhavi to Simon Wiesenthal, Linz, February 12, 1949, ibid. As it turned out, it took until August 1949 to bring Herzl s casket to Israel for reburial on the mountain that bears his name; by then, the burial of the ashes in Jerusalem was over and done with.

9 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 9 burial ceremony rejected this proposal categorically. 32 Many of those involved evidently thought it unbecoming to allow the burial of the cremated Jews ashes to precede the state ceremony for the re-interment of the remains of Herzl and members of his family. The relocation to Israel of Herzl s remains was perceived as symbolic of the triumph of Zionism; the burial of Holocaust survivors remains was a much more complex matter. The trip taken by the glass casket containing jars of ashes began at the displaced persons camp in Linz, where a mass funeral, including the participation of representatives of the Austrian authorities and diplomatic corps [took place] The casket was loaded onto a catafalque and carried by rabbis as far as the railroad station The casket containing the ashes was placed aboard a special car and transported to Rome via the Brenner Pass. 33 At first, the burial ceremony for the ashes was supposed to be national in nature, organized jointly by the Jewish Agency, the Jerusalem Municipality, the World Jewish Congress, and Israel s Ministry of Religious Affairs. The Speaker of the Knesset, Joseph Sprinzak, even delivered a speech in the Knesset, saying, The casket of ashes will be brought to Jerusalem, the city of the nation s sanctity, and there our brethren will be gathered unto their people. The content of the emotion with which we are receiving these immigrants cannot be fully expressed. 34 The Knesset House Committee established a special panel, chaired by MK Hillel Kook of the Herut Party, to deal with a matter. In practice, however, nearly all these entities were disinclined to participate in the ceremony. With only hours before the caskets were to reach Jerusalem, preparations to receive them still had not been made. 35 Thus, the Ministry of Religious Affairs undertook the organization of the ceremony and the Religious Zionists and the Chief Rabbinate turned the burial of the remains into a powerful, impressive ceremony that focused on Jerusalem and was religious in complexion. 32 Memorandum from meeting of the Joint Committee for the Re-interment of Herzl s Remains in Israel, June 9, 1949, CZA, S115/ Our Martyrs Ashes from the Camps in Austria Will Reach Lod This Afternoon by Air, HaBoqer, June 22, The Ashes of the Victims of the Nazi Holocaust Have Arrived (Hebrew), Davar, June 23, The Ashes of the Martyrs of Austria Arrived Today, the Institutions Have Made No Preparations for the Funeral (Hebrew), HaHerut, June 21, 1949.

10 10 Doron Bar When Wiesenthal reached Israel, it turned out that he had come with a glass casket containing some thirty urns of ashes. Each of the urns, tinted in blue and white and bearing a Star of David emblem, was marked with the name of a different extermination camp. 36 During the re-interment of Herzl, the casket was first stationed in Tel Aviv and only afterwards taken to Jerusalem; here too, the casket of ashes, draped in an Israeli flag, was delivered to Tel Aviv first. Most Jews in Israel, and especially the survivors from Europe, lived in the central part of the country. Placing the casket in Tel Aviv gave the masses an opportunity to file past it. The newspapers commented on the large crowd that filed past the casket and noted that some took the opportunity to place on the casket ashes and other artifacts that they had kept in their possession until then. 37 Examples were a small urn bearing the inscription Ashes of the Martyrs of Bergen-Belsen, May God Avenge Their Blood, 38 and a shipment that arrived from Poland by mail, containing half of a human skull, some bones, and ashes sent by Jews of the town of Konin- Słupca, in the Kalisz District. 39 Photos and films taken that day show people weeping bitterly; the event evidently made a powerful impression on immigrants and non-immigrants alike. 40 Eight months ago, I reached Israel from Austria. Now they have followed me, one of the survivors told a newspaper correspondent. Here, he added, pointing to an urn of ashes labeled Malhausen (i.e., Mauthausen), my wife and my two sisters were murdered. My mother and my sisters are in this urn. 41 The shops along the route of the procession were closed and schools were let out so that pupils could attend. The funeral procession, in the presence of government ministers, passed through the main streets of Tel Aviv from the Rabbinate Council building on 36 See series of photos by Eldan David, National Collector of Photographs, June 26, 1949, D Announcement by Jaffa Tel Aviv Chief Rabbinate, CZA, KRU/2382; Our Martyrs Ashes Will Be Taken to Burial in Jerusalem (Hebrew), Hatzofe, June 24, Thousands File Past Coffin Containing Martyrs Ashes in Tel Aviv (Hebrew), HaMevasser, June 24, Martyrs Ashes Interred in Jerusalem Yesterday (Hebrew), HaBoqer, June 27, For footage of the funeral, visit 41 Procession of Tears at the Coffin of National Grief (Hebrew), HaBoqer, June 24, 1949.

11 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 11 Yavne Street, Montefiore Street, and thence via Allenby Street and the Tel Aviv Central Synagogue and Ha aliya Street. 42 From Tel Aviv, it continued to Rehovot, where the President of the State of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, delivered remarks before a large audience. 43 Only afterwards was the casket taken to Jerusalem, swathed in an Israeli flag and a prayer shawl. The Jerusalem Religious Council posted the following notice around town: Let us remember the flames. Today at 3:00 p.m., the burnt ashes of 200,000 martyrs, murdered by malice and villainy, will be brought to the gates of the Holy City of Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel. We are all speechless and voiceless, heartbroken and agitated, mute and silent, churning in our pain. The public is requested en masse to desist from its labors and business and to take part in the funeral of these holy and sanctified ashes. 44 A delegation of dignitaries, including the Speaker of the Knesset and the Mayor of Jerusalem, waited for the convoy at the entrance to the city; masses of townspeople were also there. Shmuel Zanwil Kahane, Director-General of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the main force behind the development of the Chamber of the Holocaust, said, We have brought this holy receptacle of the [Jews] of Austria; in accordance with their request and last testament, we have brought them to be buried in Jerusalem. 45 In a lengthy convoy in which schoolchildren and members of youth movements marched, the casket was led to the Yeshurun Synagogue, the city s central synagogue at the time, where a eulogy was delivered. 46 Then the procession continued down the main streets of the city: King George, Strauss, Yechezkel, and Shmuel HaNavi. In Jerusalem, too, many desisted from their labors and followed the casket. 47 When the procession reached the Meah She arim quarter, many residents of that area joined in. 48 The contents of the 42 Tel Aviv Municipality notice, Funeral of the Crematorium Martyrs Ashes, YVA, M1P Weizmann at Funeral, Jerusalem Post, June 27, Announcement from Jerusalem Religious Council, CZA, KRU/ Martyrs Ashes Interred in Jerusalem Yesterday (Hebrew), HaBoqer, June 27, On the planning of the ceremony, see Kahane to the Jewish Agency Executive, June 23, 1949, CZA, S30/ Announcement, CZA, KRU/ Announcement, CZA, KRU/10377.

12 12 Doron Bar urns were buried at the cemetery in Sanhedria, in the presence of invitees only. 49 Newspapers reported that along with the casket, several dozen pieces of soap that had been made from the bodies of Jews who had been exterminated in the Nazis camps were also buried. 50 At the end of the funeral in Sanhedria, some participants continued to Mount Zion and deposited the casket and the urns there. This was probably the first time that it was proposed to transform Mount Zion into a Holocaust commemorative site in addition to its function as a Jewish shrine. 51 Indeed, it was done. The glass casket was taken to Mount Zion and placed there for safekeeping. Inside it were now displayed thirty large urns of ashes from thirty extermination camps in Austria, an urn of ashes from Bergen-Belsen, a packet of bones from crematoria in the forest near Kielców [sic, probably Kielce], Poland, and pieces of soap. 52 Consolidating the Chamber of the Holocaust While the burial of the glass casket at the Chamber of the Holocaust on Mount Zion helped to solidify the location, another symbolic event that took place there during the Sukkot festival in 1949 furthered the cause. During the holiday that year, the Ministry of Religious Affairs held a symbolic ceremony to mark the delivery of religious implements to Jerusalem to counter the removal of the Temple implements from Jerusalem to Rome. 53 The religious implements included Torah scrolls and hundreds of artifacts such as spice boxes, Hanukkah menorahs, and Torah crowns that private individuals and miscellaneous associ- 49 Martyrs Ashes to Be Buried in Jerusalem (Hebrew), Hatzofe, March 11, 1949; A. Lazar, The Ashes of 200,000 [Jews] Slaughtered in Austria Have Arrived (Hebrew), Ha aretz, June 27, Austrian Jewry Deposits Its Martyrs Ashes in Jerusalem (Hebrew), Davar, June 27, On the debate about the soap ostensibly made from the victims fat, see Michael Shemer, Alex Grobman, and Arthur Hertzberg, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002), pp Y. Diskin, For the Burial of the Martyrs Ashes (Hebrew), Letter to the Editor, Hatzofe, June 24, Mordechai Hacohen, Chapters on the Holocaust (from the Legends of the Recent Destruction) (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Hapo el Hamizrachi Press, 1950). 53 Collection of Religious Implements to Arrive Soon (Hebrew), Hatzofe, June 21, 1949.

13 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 13 ations had gathered in Europe and then brought to Israel. 54 Initially taken to Tel Aviv, they were subsequently brought to Jerusalem in a military vehicle accompanied by an honor guard. The delivery of these religious artifacts to Jerusalem was an important step toward the development of Mount Zion as a Holocaust commemorative center. The need and the wish to put these implements on public display inspired the Ministry of Religious Affairs to renovate, for this purpose, one of the caves of Mount Zion in order to render the place into an eternal light for those killed in Europe. This decision, made at the sole initiative of Shmuel Zanwil Kahane, fit well with his aim to develop Mount Zion and make it Israel s premier pilgrimage site. 55 In November 1949, Kahane convened an inter-institutional committee and reportedly several motions for the conversion of this location [Mount Zion] into an eternal light for those killed in Europe have already been brought up for discussion before [it]. 56 The fast day of the Tenth of Tevet (December 30, 1949) was an appropriate occasion for a dedication ceremony of sorts for the memorial site on Mount Zion. The central features of this event were urns of ashes, swathed in black, that contained the remains of the martyrs of Flossenbürg [concentration camp], which had been handed to Israel s Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, several weeks earlier by the refugee affairs office of the American occupation forces in Munich. 57 Reuven Hecht, a businessman from Haifa and a former member of the IZL, informed Ben-Gurion that the High Commissar for the affairs of persons persecuted on grounds of state, race, or religion in Munich presented him with a glass case containing the ashes of our martyrs whom the Nazis had murdered in the crematoria of the Flossenbürg death camp. Hecht attached to the letter an official request to have the case delivered to Israel. He also took the opportunity to add a proposal of his own: to establish on one of the hills in Jerusalem a national tomb where the ashes of our martyrs and the bones of our heroes, to 54 In a Roman Ritual (Hebrew), Herut, September 20, Doron Bar, Re-Creating Jewish Sanctity in Jerusalem: The Case of Mount Zion and Tomb of David, , The Journal of Israeli History 23:2 (2004), pp Martyrs Ashes to Burial on Mount Zion (Hebrew), HaBoqer, November 2, Ibid.

14 14 Doron Bar be gathered from all the concentration camps in Europe, men, women, and children, will be interred A monument in the form of the two tablets of the covenants, gigantic, bigger than the pyramids, should be built over this tomb. It will be the appropriate place for the national pantheon of the Jewish people, and Theodor Herzl should be brought to rest here. 58 The press reported that the Ministry of Religious Affairs was about to bury ashes and soap on Mount Zion that had been delivered from Europe and that would be gathered at this location. The Holocaust Commemoration Committee established by Kahane in fact, the Mount Zion committee that he chaired organized the ceremony and conducted it on its own, without the participation of any other official players. Ahead of the ceremony, delegations of Holocaust survivors brought artifacts such as two pieces of Jewish soap to Mount Zion and buried them there. 59 After Chief Rabbi Yehuda Unterman and Shmuel Kahane delivered eulogies at the offices of the Community Committee (Va ad Ha kehila) in Tel Aviv, the funeral procession set out for Jerusalem. Again, as in the burial ceremony for the ashes of the Jews of Austria, the burial took place at the Sanhedria cemetery and on Mount Zion. The ashes and the soap were buried at dawn and the remains were placed in an indentation in one of the slabs. 60 A candelabrum was installed at the entrance to Mount Zion; its branches corresponded in number to the number of urns of ashes that are kept in the Chamber of the Holocaust. Finally, an Eternal Light was lit at the location. 61 After sprinkling ashes on their clothing, the Chief Rabbis lowered the remains into the Chamber of the Holocaust. The ceremony was ac- 58 Reuven Hecht to David Ben-Gurion, March 30, 1949, ISA, G-33/ Masses Pay Respects to the Martyrs of Flossenbürg Yedioth Ahronoth (Hebrew), December 29, 1949; Burial of Martyrs Ashes on Holocaust Day (Hebrew), Hatzofe, December 5, Kahane s initial idea was to erect at this location a monument shaped like a crematorium and to fit it with a geniza (ritual burial) receptacle in which the urns of ashes would be kept. See Program Proposal for the Tenth of Tevet: Holocaust Remembrance Day, CZA, S21/314; Ashes of the Martyrs of Flossenbürg: to Eternal Rest (Hebrew), Yedioth Ahronoth, December 30, Tenth of Tevet Program: Holocaust Remembrance Day (Hebrew), Ha aretz, December 17, 1950; Shmuel Zanwil Kahane, The Chamber of the Holocaust on Mount Zion (Hebrew), Hatzofe, December 19, 1950; see photo of the glass container, ibid.

15 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 15 companied by the recital of the Scroll of the Holocaust, written especially for this day of remembrance. 62 The urns were put away in the Chamber of the Holocaust, the newspapers informed their readers, in order to emphasize the link between the decline of the Diaspora the Holocaust and the budding of the messianic redemption, the independence of sovereign Israel. 63 The involvement of Holocaust survivors in the ceremony was manifested in a directive from the Rabbinate: Those who delivered the ashes and the artifacts were required to sprinkle efer maqleh [ashes created by incineration] on their bodies. They passed through the special crematorium that had been set up for this purpose in order to take up ashes and thence they descended into the Chamber of the Holocaust. 64 The burial of the ashes in the Chamber of the Holocaust created on Mount Zion a unique combination of a sanctified tomb and a commemorative site abounding with symbolic elements, a place that combined commemoration and exhibition, a geniza and a museum all rolled into one. The glass containers holding the religious artifacts and the ashes, the miscellaneous exhibits, the excerpts of poetry born on the stones of the Holocaust in the ghettos and camps and among the partisans, and the maps associated with the Holocaust made a visit to this place a moving experience for many. 65 A Room of Scrolls was opened at the Chamber of the Holocaust, with an exhibit of Torah scrolls that had been brought from Europe and a collection of posters and slogans, mounted on the walls, stressing the contrast of the destruction of European Jewry and the Jews resurrection in Israel. 66 In the Ingathering of the Exiles room next to the chamber, a shofar (ram s horn) from Bergen-Belsen was displayed in a display case 62 Tel Aviv Masses to File Past the Ashes of the Martyrs This Morning (Hebrew), Hatzofe, December 29, Shmuel Zanwil Kahane to Prof. Benzion Dinur, Government Committee for the Commemoration of the Martyrs of the Holocaust, January 20, 1953, ISA, 98, GL- 12/ Masses of Jews Communed with the Martyrs of the Holocaust Yesterday (Hebrew), Davar, December 20, Letter, Kahane to Dinur, Government Committee for the Commemoration of the Martyrs of the Holocaust, January 20, 1953, ISA, 98, GL-12/6261; Shmuel Zanwil Kahane, Mount Zion, Its Symbols and Legends (Hebrew), Hatzofe, May 20, Y. Edelstein, From the Realities of the Capital (Hebrew), Hatzofe, March 5, 1953.

16 16 Doron Bar together with other religious artifacts from the destroyed communities. Another display case displayed a jacket that the Nazis had sewn from Torah parchments. 67 Several Holocaust-related exhibitions were set up on Mount Zion, e.g., Passover implements from Europe and the Room of the Haggadahs, where surviving Haggadahs were put on display. A citron that had been used at the Bergen-Belsen camp was exhibited as well. 68 From then on, the Chamber of the Holocaust was the only legitimate venue for the burial of Holocaust remains, at least in the view of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Chief Rabbinate. The Ministry insisted that any ashes to be delivered to Israel be buried on Mount Zion and nowhere else. Thus, the exponents of Religious Zionism acquired a monopoly on traditional commemoration related to the ashes of victims of the Holocaust. The establishment of the Chamber of the Holocaust, next to David s Tomb, allowed the Religious Affairs Ministry to create a sanctified space that could be integrated into an annual cycle of Holocaust commemorative events that developed steadily over the years. 69 By sponsoring ceremonies there on almost every fast day and Jewish festival, the Ministry created a link among the vicissitudes and killings of Jews since antiquity, the events of the Holocaust, and the Jewish national resurrection. The observances marked at the Chamber of the Holocaust created a commemorative time frame that spanned much of the year and was almost totally separate from the general system of Holocaust commemoration in Israel. 70 The focal point of commemoration on Mount Zion was remembrance of the destruction of the Jewish communities and centers of Jewish scholarship 67 Shmuel Zanwil Kahane, The Shofar That Was Returned (Hebrew), Hatzofe, August 25, 1950; for more about the jacket, see Hatzofe, September 3, Program of Pilgrimage to Jerusalem on Passover (Hebrew), Hatzofe, March 27, 1950; Citron from Bergen-Belsen to Mount Zion (Hebrew), Hatzofe, August 14, Regarding this schedule of events, see Kahane, Traditional Commemoration of the Martyrs of the Holocaust (for General Kaddish Day, the Tenth of Tevet) (Hebrew), Hatzofe, January 4, Detailed schedule of commemorative events on Mount Zion, Kahane to Dinur, Government Committee for the Commemoration of the Martyrs of the Holocaust, January 20, 1953, ISA, 98, GL-12/6261; Schedule of Memorial Days for Destroyed Communities at the Chamber of the Holocaust on Mount Zion (official publication of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, 1958) YVA, AM.1/386.

17 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 17 and study in Eastern Europe, attacks on synagogues, and the desecration of holy books. The memorial days on Mount Zion were observed in accordance with traditional Jewish customs of mourning and commemoration. They included the recitation of lamentations and the study of Mishnah 71 and were materially different from the secular commemorative rituals that had been evolving at the same time, which usually included speeches by public figures, accompanied by artistic interludes including the recitation of poetry or prose that reflected the main symbols of the era. The Chamber of the Holocaust on Mount Zion solved the problem of remembrance and commemoration that survivors and communities faced by providing them with a small, personal, parochial venue of a traditional religious nature. The lighting of candles at the site, the recitation of prayers, and the installation of community monuments along the walls of the Chamber lent the act of commemoration on Mount Zion a traditional ambience that was familiar to, and desired by, many survivors who still maintained their community frameworks. 72 To commemorate the destroyed communities, hundreds of memorial plaques engraved with the names of the communities were installed in the Chamber 73 and a religious ceremony allowing survivors to remember their destroyed communities was devised. 74 Thus, in the 1950s, the relationship between survivors of the communities and Mount Zion, the Chamber of the Holocaust, and Kahane solidified and intensified. The survivors activities in commemo- 71 Kahane, At the Tomb of the Unknown Victim at the Chamber of the Holocaust (Hebrew), Hatzofe, December 25, The candle-lighting custom and some of the memorial plaques at the Chamber of the Holocaust may be observed in David Perlow s short film, In Thy Blood Live (1961), Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive. 73 Conference of Representatives of Destroyed Communities on the Occasion of General Kaddish Day (Hebrew), Hatzofe, January 21, For the photos of some of these stones, see General Kaddish Day (Hebrew), Young Israel 11 (December 1965), pp Kahane to Yaakov Ross, Tourism Bureau, New York, November 1955, ISA, 98, GL- 7/6261. The memorial ceremony included the lighting of six candles, the recitation of Psalms, and the study of passages from the Mishnah beginning with the first letter of the name of the town in question. The survivors recalled their destroyed homes, through telling stories, by descending into the Chamber of the Holocaust, lighting candles next to the urn of ashes, and singing Ani Ma amin (a reaffirmation of faith). Sometimes they also recited the Scroll of the Shtetl.

18 18 Doron Bar rating the Holocaust and burying ashes were spontaneous in nature, grassroots in origin, and devoid of official state or other institutional involvement. In contrast, the establishment of the Chamber of the Holocaust and its development as a shrine, a memorial, and a place of commemoration was a more institutional activity that manifested itself in the involvement of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Kahane provided the survivors with elements of sanctity and remembrance that were unavailable anywhere else in Israel. Foremost among them were the ashes that were buried and the desecrated religious artifacts displayed in the Chamber of the Holocaust. They furnished a large measure of authenticity and allowed a transference of sorts, from the shattered Diaspora to Mount Zion, to take place. Kahane managed to persuade some survivors to regard the Chamber as the principal venue of commemoration for their loved ones, and they considered Mount Zion the natural final resting place of the remains in their possession. 75 Yad Vashem, the Hall of Remembrance, and the Burial of Ashes in its Floor In the 1950s and 1960s, relations between the officials of Yad Vashem and Kahane and his associates at the Ministry of Religious Affairs were characterized by much tension. This tenseness was associated with relations between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem, and the struggle was reflected above all in the question of the legitimacy of maintaining a commemorative site that was additional and parallel to Yad Vashem, which over the decades gradually became Israel s central venue of Holocaust commemoration. 76 Yad Vashem s Perception of Holocaust Commemoration According to the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Law, The function of Yad Vashem is to gather into the homeland all commemoratory material regarding members of the Jewish people who fell, fought, and rebelled against the Nazi enemy and German satellites to 75 Memorial Ceremonies on Holocaust Day (Hebrew), Hatzofe, December 29, Divrei ha-knesset 14, (1953), p

19 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 19 establish a memorial for them and for the communities, organizations, and institutions which were destroyed because they belonged to the Jewish people. 77 Immediately after Yad Vashem was established in the second half of 1953, the leaders of Religious Zionism began to express fierce criticism of the new institution s conduct and the aspects that it sought to emphasize in remembering and commemorating the Holocaust. In 1954 the convening of a joint panel composed of representatives of Yad Vashem and the Mount Zion Committee brought to the surface the enormous differences between these entities and the discord in their relations. Benzion Dinur, chairman of Yad Vashem, argued vehemently: The binding Yad Vashem Law exists and you can t have a state institution [the Mount Zion Committee, chaired by Kahane] doing similar things at the same time. Yad Vashem aims to bring the historical truth to light; therefore, the field of legend and stories [which Kahane has been cultivating] is far from its purview. The Mount Zion Committee cannot serve as a commemorative entity. 78 Dinur expressed his opposition to Kahane s activities on Mount Zion, namely, the development of King David s Tomb and the Chamber of the Holocaust and the emphasis on grassroots commemorative activity. Zerach Warhaftig, Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs, in contrast, believed that it was impossible to disregard the ramified Holocaust commemoration that was taking place on Mount Zion: It is a living entity today; therefore, one cannot speak about plans but rather about something that already exists and is up and running. Tens of thousands of Jews make pilgrimage to that place each year and they 77 The Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Law: the Yad Vashem Authority, Sefer HaHuqim [Book of Laws] 132 (Hebrew), Elul 17, 5713 [August 28, 1953]. English translation from Benzion Dinur, Problems Confronting Yad Vashem in its Work of Research, Yad Vashem Studies, 1 (1957), p ISA, 98, GL-8/14913, minutes of the meeting of the Small Directorate, June 22, As for the perception of commemoration in the minds of Dinur and the other Yad Vashem officials and the state of Holocaust research at the time, see Boaz Cohen, The Birth Pangs of Holocaust Research in Israel, Yad Vashem Studies, 33 (2005), pp ; and idem, Holocaust Survivors and Early Israeli Holocaust Research: a Reappraisal, in Martin L. Davis and Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann, eds., How the Holocaust Looks Now: International Perspective (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp

20 20 Doron Bar also think of it as a substitute for the Western Wall [which was not accessible to Jews then, ed.]. 79 In 1955 the contacts between Yad Vashem and Kahane led to a signed agreement in which the Mount Zion Committee acceded to Yad Vashem supervision of its activity in the field of traditional commemoration of the martyrs of the Holocaust. The Mount Zion Committee would also retain operational autonomy in areas such as Tenth of Tevet programs and all traditional commemorative programs and commemorative activities on Mount Zion would take place only with Yad Vashem s consent. 80 Despite the agreement, confrontations between Yad Vashem and Kahane and his associates continued and, in fact, intensified. The question of whether Yad Vashem should occupy itself with commemoration generally and the traditional commemoration particularly, in addition to the duties specified in the Yad Vashem Law, remained moot. Kahane, representing all of Religious Zionism in a manner of speaking, believed that these domains should be separated and that the Chamber of the Holocaust should be the site where the traditional religious aspect of the victims of the Holocaust should be emphasized. Some, however, argued that the Chamber of the Holocaust should be closed down altogether and that Yad Vashem should serve as the center of traditional commemoration. 81 The merging of domains between Mount Zion and a Holocaust monument is unacceptable ; accordingly, Yad Vashem should also centralize, within the framework of the monument to be established, the values in this field that are centered at Mount Zion. From this standpoint, we think the location next to the cemetery for those who fell in the War of Independence is a more suitable place than Mount Zion for the mausoleum to the victims of the Holocaust. 82 Only in the second half of the 1950s, several years after the passage of 79 Minutes of meeting of the Small Directorate, June 22, 1954; ISA, 98, GL-8/ Agreement between the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Yad Vashem Directorate in regard to Mount Zion, February 4, 1955, ibid. 81 Idol-worship is taking place on Mount Zion, said Moshe Kol, a Member of the Yad Vashem Directorate. See the Yad Vashem Directorate minutes, February 1, 1956, YVA, AM.1/ Y. Kipper, The Mount Zion Reality: Pro and Con (Hebrew), HaDor, June 6, 1954.

21 Between the Chamber of the Holocaust and Yad Vashem 21 the Yad Vashem Law, did the officials at this institution begin to show greater concern regarding their institution s responsibility for Holocaust commemoration and the best way to remember the Holocaust in its material sense. 83 While Yad Vashem wished to help every living Jew and to establish in Israel a remembrance for his relatives and martyrs, 84 it was no simple matter to define this aspiration and its practical implementation. The name Mount of Remembrance says that the entire mountain should symbolize remembrance: this whole piece of land, including its buildings, arrangements, content, image, and form, 85 Dinur opined in internal discussions, suggesting that this should be enough and that the collecting of artifacts and research should take precedence over the material commemoration of the Holocaust. In these discussions, however, the question of bringing martyrs ashes to Israel and determining where to bury them surfaced again and again. It transpired that most members of the committee favored the interment of the ashes at Yad Vashem as part of the commemoration program. Moshe Kol, for example, argued, We should give less thought to the second generation I have reached the general conclusion that the idea of the Tomb of the Unknown Victim at the Hall of Remembrance is an idea that brooks no competition It seems to me that the Tomb of the Unknown will command much more respect [than the previous proposals relating to a shrine of remembrance] and [especially] if we manage to bring martyrs ashes. Rabbi Avraham Shag, representing the Council for the Commemoration of the Soldier in the debates, took a traditional religious stance and added: We should have gathered all these dear and holy ashes and buried them. And added them to this holy soil. We should have brought them to be buried in this location, where masses throng because they know that the remains of the great Visionary of the State, Herzl, were brought here to be buried Imagine what a remem- 83 See Mooli Brog, Landscape of Memory: The Holocaust and Heroism Monuments at Yad Vashem (Hebrew), Ariel 170 (2005), pp Yad Vashem (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: np, nd), ISA, 98, G-2/ Symposium convened by the Yad Vashem director, June 10, 1956, ISA, 98, GL- 6/14913.