In the winter of 1945, Yitzhak Perlmutter spent his days pushing wheelbarrows full of coal from the train to the factory in the concentration camp subcamp Möllersdorf, saving his extra piece of bread each day for his little sister. That 10-year-old boy could not possibly have imagined that he would have children of his own someday, let alone grandchildren. He certainly could not have imagined that his grandson would be a soldier for a Jewish state he could never have dreamed would exist.
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But last week, the Hungarian native had the opportunity to tour a brand-new center designed to show Israel's soldiers the horror that he and other Jews experienced in World War II and the Holocaust. His grandson, Matan, an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, joined him for the tour.
As such, he is part of a family legacy. In the early years of the state, Perlmutter served in the IDF. "And now, my grandchild is continuing in our way," he adds. "Seeing my grandchildren in uniform is a source of tremendous pride and the greatest form of victory over what we endured during the Shoah [the Hebrew term for the Holocaust]."
Timed to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day, the "Before My Very Eyes" Yad Vashem Educational Center for Holocaust Remembrance is now open at the Ariel Sharon IDF training campus in the Negev Desert.
Here, thousands of IDF trainees each year are expected to learn about the Holocaust in greater depth through a series of interactive exhibits and workshops connecting them in new ways with the Jewish experience during those terrible years.
Yitzhak Perlmutter and his grandson, Matan, an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, tour the new exhibition "Before My Very Eyes." Credit: Yad Vashem.
At a time of increasing global antisemitism and Holocaust denial, and with the disappearance of the remaining survivors who bear witness and can set the record straight, the center approaches the Holocaust as a pivotal event in the history of the Jewish people, according to Shani Lourie Farhi, the center's director of content and the head of Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies.
According to Farhi, the center – the culmination of a multi-year partnership between the school and the IDF's Educational Corps – also invites soldiers to explore such enduring values as Jewish identity, mutual responsibility, leadership, heroism, and attachment to the land and people of Israel.
"Though for years, Yad Vashem has worked with the IDF to raise Holocaust awareness among its soldiers, this is the first permanent structure on an army base," explained Farhi. "These young adults have put their own lives on hold for years to protect Israel and the Jewish people, so from the beginning, we needed to ask ourselves what's important for them to know at this point in their lives, and what will inspire them?"
In addition to providing the historical context for what was going on in the world and within Jewish communities at that time, the center is replete with personal stories.
"We wanted to introduce them not just to how they died but how they lived in the years before - who they were as people, to open a window in the minds and hearts of these future leaders of Israel and the Jewish people to a deeper understanding," said Farhi.
One natural connection is the love many Holocaust-era Jews held for Israel, a land where they dreamed of being free to live as proud Jews. One photo at the center features a woman in the Lodz Ghetto teaching children with a map of Israel on the wall. "Imagine that of the few things they were allowed to take to the ghetto someone chose to take that map. The dream of Israel meant that much to them," noted Farhi. "A woman who had lost everything teaching children who may not have a future to love a land that must have seemed so far-fetched, but still, they clung to it."
As they explore the core values that bridge the Holocaust generation with today's IDF soldiers, one that struck Corporal Tom Abutbul was "the value of friendship, of helping one another."
Such shared eternal values also brought Rachel Shnay and her family into the project as donors.
"As soon as we heard about it, we realized this was the perfect way to memorialize our grandfather," said Shnay, whose grandparents were all survivors and who serves as co-chair of the American Society of Yad Vashem Young Leaders.
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Her grandfather, Symcha Horowitz, who died last year and for whom this gift was given, witnessed his father being hung and lost his mother to starvation in the ghetto, and four of his six brothers in the camps. Yet he went on to help found the Israeli Air Force and fight in the 1948 War of Independence. Though, as an entrepreneur, he subsequently lived in Bolivia, Argentina, London, Miami, and New York, Horowitz's passion for Israel and the Zionist dream never faded, his granddaughter said. Indeed, one of his most treasured possessions was his pre-state Palestine identification card from 1945.
"The center puts the past, present, and future together in one building," said Shnay. "And the soldiers who spend time here will see it's because of the courage of survivors like my grandparents, who loved Israel and were so proud of it that they are here in this country today. They'll know why they're here."
Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan agreed.
"Against the backdrop of rising global antisemitism, Holocaust distortion and trivialization, and fewer survivors remaining among us, our responsibility is to inspire young men and women at different stages of their military service through an in-depth study of the Holocaust and highlight several individuals who can serve as role models to the leaders of tomorrow," he said.
As such, the future is as much in the spotlight as the past, said Maj. Gen. Michel Yanko, who heads the IDF's Technological and Logistics Directorate.
"This center is not only a commemoration to those who were murdered; it is also a promise to the survivors: to carry the torch and to pass it on," he said. "For me, the son of Panel Yanko, a survivor of the deportations and the Holocaust, it is not only my family's legacy but also the closing of a circle, a symbol of the transition from Shoah to rebirth and an important contribution to educating generations of soldiers and military personnel."
All of this greatly pleases survivor and now great-grandfather Perlmutter, who came to Israel in 1946 after being liberated with his mother and sister and having returned to Hungary long enough to learn of the murders of his brother and the rest of their family in Auschwitz.
"I feel that every Jew, and of course, every soldier, has to know exactly what happened and know the story of the Holocaust. A nation that does not know its past has no future," he said.
That is something that makes 24-year-old Matan Perlmutter particularly proud "not only as a grandson of a Holocaust survivor but as an officer."
"I think the soldiers' connection to the Jewish people's past is very important in that we are the continuation and future of the State of Israel and the Jewish people."
This piece of Jewish history – and destiny – is brought home for Shnay each time she hears a particular line in "Hatikvah," Israel's national anthem: "L'hiyot am chofshi b'artzenu" – "To be a free nation in our land."
"That always reminds me of my grandfather and all the others who went through that hell, and yet were willing to put their lives on the line again, but this time for something that meant everything to them," she said with evident pride.
"From destruction to rebirth, the fact that Jews are in Israel today is a miracle; they're there on the fruits of the survivors' labor and their sacrifice. And you can't move forward unless you know where you come from."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
