Chamber of the Holocaust (Hebrew:מרתף השואה,Martef HaShoa, lit. "Cellar of the Catastrophe") is a smallHolocaust museum located onMount Zion inJerusalem. It was Israel's first Holocaust museum.[1][2][3]
The memorial was inaugurated on 30 December 1949 by theMinistry of Religion and its Director-General, Rabbi Dr. Samuel Zangvil Kahane, whose purview included Mount Zion.[4] That same year, Kahane oversaw the on-site burial of ashes of victims from theOranienburg concentration camp[5] together with desecratedTorah scrolls recovered from Nazi Europe.[6]
In contrast toYad Vashem, the government's official Holocaust memorial museum established in 1953 on Mount Herzl – a new site symbolizing rebirth after destruction – theChief Rabbinate chose Mount Zion as the site for the Chamber of the Holocaust because of its proximity toDavid's Tomb, which symbolically connotes ancient Jewish history and the promise of messianic redemption (through theMessiah, son ofDavid).[7][8]
Scholars have noted that the somber ambience of the museum, whose dank, cave-like rooms[9] are illuminated by candelight,[10] is meant to portray the Holocaust as a continuation of the "death and destruction" that plagued Jewish communities throughout history.[11]
The museum features a large courtyard and ten exhibition rooms.[3] The walls of the courtyard plus several rooms and passages are covered with tombstone-like plaques[12] inscribed inHebrew,Yiddish, andEnglish, memorializing more than 2,000 Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust.[13][14] These plaques were generally sponsored by survivors from those communities, and survivors hold memorial services here on the anniversary of their town's destruction.[13]
Below is an example, accompanied by a translation of the text:
In eternal memory
In memory of the souls of our dear friends, the martyrs of our city Przedecz(Pshaytsh) (Włocławek district) who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators,may their names be obliterated inChełmno on the 7th day ofIyar, [5]742 [Anno Mundi], 24 April 1942 and in the other places of extermination, may God avenge their blood The memorial day was established as the 7th day of Iyar May their lives be bound in the bundle of the living Their holy memory immortalized by the survivors of our city
Many of the museum's exhibits display religious artifacts such as a bloodstained Torah scroll fromWęgrów, Poland, and a handwrittenprayer book from theBuchenwald concentration camp. Other exhibits include "purses, shoe soles, drums and wallets made from theparchments of Torah scrolls",[3] a coat sewn from Torah parchments which was worn by a Nazi officer, a prisoner uniform from theAuschwitz concentration camp,[3] and a recreation of the gas oven used in the crematoria ofconcentration camps.[15] The museum also includes urns with the ashes of Holocaust victims from 36 Nazideath camps[16] and"RIF" soap allegedly manufactured by the Nazis from human fat.[15] There is also an exhibit onneo-Nazism with a selection of modern-dayantisemitic literature.[17]
^abcd"מרתף השואה" [Chamber of the Holocaust] (in Hebrew). Jerusalem Municipality. 2008.Archived from the original on 2021-02-04. Retrieved2012-05-11.
^Bar, Doron (Fall 2005). "Holocaust Commemoration in Israel During the 1950s: The Holocaust Cellar on Mount Zion".Jewish Social Studies.12 (1). Indiana University Press: 19.doi:10.2979/JSS.2005.12.1.16.S2CID162385688.
^Edrei, Arye (2007-06-07)."Holocaust Memorial". In Doron Mendels (ed.).On Memory: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Peter Lang. p. 43.ISBN978-3-03911-064-3.Archived from the original on 2014-07-05. Retrieved2021-02-04.
^Israel; Merkaz Ha-Hasbarah, Israel; Miśrad Ha-Ḥinukh Ṿeha-Tarbut, Israel (1967).Israel government year-book. p. 331.Archived from the original on 2021-02-04. Retrieved2021-02-04.
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