The last day. It’s been a bit of a ride, but there was only one place to go on the last day.
Yad Vashem is an extraordinary place. It doesn’t matter how many people are there, it feels empty and silent.
Actually, that’s not strictly true. I was in the main hall when a small group of kids burst through, all noisy laughter and not taking it bloody seriously. I got really pissed off with them and it was only the English reserve that stopped me from telling them what I thought. But just as I was getting properly grumpy, there was a big display of some godforsaken kids in some godforsaken camp and I suddenly I flipped to thinking how refreshing it was to hear kid’s laughter, to see kids doing what kids should be doing.
Architecturally, it’s striking. You walk through the darkness and literally into the light and, while you might think that you’ve seen the pictures before, it still makes no sense.
What hit me was how quickly it happened. How quickly people turned from ordinary folk to absolute monsters. How they went from being a bloke who went to the shop to get a coffee and croissant to mass murderer capable of the absolutely unthinkable. I still have no idea and, frankly, I’m not sure I want to know.
It didn’t take long to go back to Jerusalem.
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I’d got to know Jerusalem – well, the three roads round Ben Yehuda where I lived – reasonably well, so headed back to the jazz cafe I’d spent most of my time in.
There was a old Hareidi bloke sitting in the corner by a chess board and beckoned me over. I’d seen him play last night while the band were on, maybe he was still here.
Being Hareidi, there wasn’t much in the way of small talk, but he seemed nice enough, chain-smoking and pointing at the board to get a point across.
As the club filled, cool young things came and went, and we all chatted and laughed and listened to jazz. And we all lost to the old Hareidi bloke who, from 5 till about 11.30, didn’t move from his chair, smoked around 3,000 fags and didn’t seem to take much notice of who he was playing or the band, who were good and played a folky, gypsy-ish jazz.
And then it was time to go back to the hotel and pack up. A 5am start is no one’s friend.