Yad Vashem

She knows somebody who works there. That was the excuse our Hebrew teacher came up with for us to visit Yad Vashem. It doesn't really take much for us to be convinced to visit there. But her friend works at a part of the memorial that I had never heard about before. The Valley of the Communities is a labyrinth that has the names of communities that were affected by the extermination during the Holocaust.

It was a pretty powerful exhibit to wander through. The walls are probably 30 feet high, and there is no roof or ceiling. Greenery growing on the edge and inching their way down into the labyrinth.

We were there for Hebrew class, and our guide walked us through the maze and told us pieces about the exhibit, entirely in Hebrew. It's starting to dawn on me that I am getting better with this language. I know I'm not that great, but I'm mostly functional. I'd say proficient, not fluent. But that's not the point today.

Orna, our teacher, took us to see the exhibit that is built to remember the Adolf Eichman trial (another thing we've read and talked about in Hebrew class). That's the third time I've been to Yad Vashem, and I still haven't repeated large sections of the memorial. It's still a very moving place to go.