From the Holocaust to Israel: Crossing borders to the Jewish state - opinion

• Published date: 13 October 2021
• Author: DANI DAYAN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Exactly 100 years later, I have taken on a new role as chairman of Yad Vashem.

I was tasked with the privilege and tremendous responsibility representing the State of Israel for four years as consul general in New York. In that role, I, too, crossed many international borders, but this time under diplomatic protection with a wave of my Israeli passport. Furthermore, unlike many Jews from across Europe who for generations felt forced to hide their Jewish roots, I was empowered by the words "State of Israel" in English and Hebrew, together with the menorah, a distinct Jewish symbol, emblazoned both on my diplomatic passport and on my heart.

These two border-crossing stories, astonishing in their differences, are just one illustration of the transformative experiences undergone by the Jewish people in our time. Barely two decades after my grandparents' and father's miraculous escape from murderous antisemites, the world witnessed humanity sink to its lowest depths during the Shoah – the systematic murder of two thirds of European Jewry.

I consider myself among the fortunate, cushioned by safety as my immediate ancestors narrowly escaped the Holocaust. I was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and moved to Israel at the age of 15. Yet, wherever I have lived, the legacy of the Shoah was never far from my mind. It was instilled in my memory as I grew up as part of a Jewish minority in Latin America, and later as I became an adult in our Jewish homeland in Israel. The Holocaust is part of the collective Jewish experience, and while Yad Vashem will forever belong to the Jewish people, it also serves as a beacon to the entire world.

As I commence my new position as chairman, I strive to meet this enormous responsibility. During a recent walkabout on Yad Vashem's campus on Jerusalem's Mount of Remembrance, I was compellingly struck by the final words of Gela Seksztajn, a brilliant Jewish artist from Warsaw who was murdered in Treblinka, at the entrance to the Museum of Holocaust Art:

"As I stand on the border between life and death, certain that I will not remain alive, I wish to take leave from my friends and my works…. My works I bequeath to the Jewish museum to be built after the war. Farewell, my friends. Farewell, the Jewish people. Never again allow such a catastrophe."

Unfortunately, the mission bequeathed to us by Gela and the other six million Jewish men, women and children...