(May 2, 2011) Today (Yom HaShoah) my father and I took a trip to the Ghetto Fighters Museum just a few miles away, off the coast. Admission was free and we picked up a hitchhiker on the way out of Maalot. He decided to tag along to see the museum and we drove. At 10:00 AM, as we were driving through Nahariya, the siren went off, the alarm reminding us of the Holocaust. We pulled over, as did EVERYBODY else and got out of the car. We stood still, as all of Jewish Israel did, and thought about the Holocaust. After the minute or so the siren turned off and we continued to the museum.

Ghetto Fighters Museum

The museum was built in 1946 or something, the first Holocaust museum in the world. It was founded by, I believe, Dutch “partisans” who came to Israel after the war. They built a kibbutz next to a large (14 kilometres long) aqueduct built during the Hellenistic period.

Hellenist-age aqueduct

The museum is composed of many floors each dedicated to different Holocaust related concepts (ie partisans, Dutch underground, concentration camps, righteous gentiles, records & testimonies).

Concentration camp prisoner uniforms

There was a thing on the wall that tallied up the total death count of World War II. It totalled to over 55 million people killed, 6,141,000 being Jews. Wow!

Total tally of WWII - 55,600,000 people

Among the museum’s numerous collections was the bulletproof glass box that Adolf Eichmann stood in for his trial after his capture in Argentine.

Eichmann's trial box

Additionally there is a strangely shaped Children’s Museum which is for anybody but children. Eerie and built with a artistic design meant to send shivers down one’s spine, the Children’s Museum is a bit haunting, perhaps a bit too haunting. After a few hours we concluded our informative trip, our tag-along disappeared and we went home.

Later that evening, Chief of Staff General Benny Ganz came for a ceremony outdoors in the amphitheatre that in between the museum and the aqueduct. We were not in attendance but maybe next year…