New exhibit to honor survivors' central role in Israeli life

A new exhibit to open today at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, "My Homeland," might under other circumstances open on May 1, marking Holocaust Remembrance Day. However, Yad Vashem deemed this exhibit, which documents 60 years of Holocaust survivors' contributions to Israeli society, too joyful a subject to open on the memorial day itself, and chose to do so three days earlier.

The exhibit showcases the achievements of survivors in all walks of Israeli life: literature, economics, defense, settlement and culture, but a central place is dedicated to the visual arts - graphics, industrial design, fashion, caricatures and painting.

According to Michal Broshi, consultant to the exhibit's curator, this emphasis reflects the fact that, over the past 60 years, a great many leaders in precisely these areas were Holocaust survivors, and that it was a means for making the exhibit lively and colorful.

Alongside a fighter's helmet from the War of Independence, the text of the oath of allegiance to the Israel Defense Forces in Yiddish, and a letter from the Israel Defense Forces' draft office explaining to commanders how to treat survivors, one can view the logos of Israel's biggest companies, designed by Dan Reisinger; Leah Gottlieb's Gottex swimsuits; the eternal sabra "Srulik," designed by Kariel Gardosh (Dosh); and a huge poster of the signature Israeli mushroom-shaped box for saccharin, designed by Israel Alfred Glick. These are just some of the displays at the exhibit, which will be showing for a year.

"Over the past year, we've all been busy with the justified fight of the Holocaust survivors to improve their welfare," says Avner Shalev, the chairman of Yad Vashem, "and the impression was that this is a group of defeated people."

However, Shalev goes on to describe the survivors as "half a million people, who came here, established themselves without help from anyone, and built the country with their own hands."

Although he concedes that this exhibit should have been put on a long time ago, Shalev says he is not aware of the feeling among some survivors' organizations that Yad Vashem was not always attentive to them.

Professor Hanna Yablonka, the exhibit's historical consultant, feels differently. "After I wrote my doctorate on the survivors, I began leading their fight against Yad Vashem, which for years argued that its mandate was to deal only with the Holocaust, up to May 8, 1945. But the great story is that of the survivors, from an educational perspective as well."

Yablonka says Yad Vashem began relating differently to survivors only during the past five years, as a result of grassroots pressure.

One of the artists in the exhibit, caricaturist Shmulik Katz, who illustrated the quintessentially sabra children's adventure books "Hasamba," ascribes the lack of attention paid to survivors as a tendency of the survivors themselves to make others forget "that we are a product of the Holocaust. We wanted with all our might to be Israelis."