In Honoring Survival, and Gifts to a Nation Isabel Kershner writes about a new exhibit at Yad Vashem devoted to the Holocaust survivors who escaped to Israel.
The gray walls of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial here, have long documented the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis against Europe’s Jews. Now, an oddly vibrant exhibition at the memorial is telling a less known story of the renaissance of the survivors in Israel and the extraordinary role they played in shaping the character of the new state.“My Homeland: Holocaust Survivors in Israel†opened in late April, in time for the 60th anniversary this week of Israel’s founding. Instead of gas chambers and ghettoes, it showcases designer beachwear and boldly colored posters that promoted potent Israeli symbols like the airline El Al.
Though she reports (without documentation)
Of 250,000 survivors in Israel today, 80,000 or more are said to be living on or near the poverty line.
Overall
… experts say the suffering of those left behind in their old age does not negate their immigration success story.“The story of the Holocaust can be told from many different angles,†said Hanna Yablonka, a historical consultant to the exhibition. “To me, one of the most important aspects is the question of where you take such a huge disaster. You can turn to revenge, or to building.â€
This was a particularly apt story:
“We came with nothing, without money, with nowhere to live,†Mrs. Gottlieb recalled, after viewing a movie about herself in a corner of the exhibition an hour before the official opening. “The first two or three years were very, very hard,†she said.Petite and manicured, in a black pantsuit and sensible leather shoes, Mrs. Gottlieb recounted in still-halting Hebrew how she and her husband opened a raincoat factory like the one they had left behind in Europe. But for months “we saw no rain, only sunshine,†she said. So they founded Gottex, a swimwear company that quickly grew to become a leading Israeli brand abroad.
Mrs. Gottlieb, the company’s chief designer, would sometimes tell of an ugly memory from the past, said a grandson, Danny Shir, 37, like when she hid herself and her children in a pit behind the house of their gentile host after seeing a Nazi with a pistol outside.
Another remarkable aspect of the story is that of the estimated 500,000 survivors who made it to Israel, half are still alive.
I guess it would be snide to observe that the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are not also called Holocaust survivors.
In related news, Smooth Stone observes that Yad Vashem has put many of its photographic library online.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
