The newly rebuilt and refurbished Holocaust Museum of Melbourne opened its doors on November 11, 2023. It is an extraordinary building, stunning in its simplicity and remarkable in the light and air it brings into the dark history it commemorates.
This is a poem and a blessing I wrote for the occasion and share them with you for this Yom Hashoah
A Poem: We remember the darkness
Today we remember the darkness.
Today we reach back into the long black nights
(Ha Laylot Halalu Koolam Choshech)
No light in this cattle carriage mamma
No light in this barren barrack papa
Oh my people – you who filled this planet with so much colour and light
You’ve seen
Too many a dark night
(Vechoshech Al pnei te hom)
Skewered by crucifixes
Carved by cutting crescents
Burnt by heils and heps
Trampled by jackboots
And just yesterday –
Plowed by unholy Allah Akhbars
Today in this loving light place of shade
Today we remember not to forget
And today we remember to forget
Not to forget the casual calloused heart of human kind
But to forget those who would carelessly incinerate our fiery bushes.
Don’t they know the more you burn us the more you ignite us?
That we may be wounded our flesh charred
But our spirit burns ,oh how it burns
Oh my Lord
Tattie daddy abba Avinu
Don’t forsake me
(al taazveinu)
just hold me for a little longer
Hold me like you hold the stars
Name me like you name the stars
Let the new sparks grow out of the black earth ,out of the charred ovens
Today we will climb the beams of light
Even as dark rockets pound the fields of Zion
Even as serpentine shadows surround our own serene suburbs
We will declare Eden in Elsternwick
We are here to stay and to ride our wild lions of Judah into the quavering future
We will join the ancient dreamers of this crusty continent
We will not cease our dreaming…
And a Prayer:
Mizmor Shir Chanukat HaBayit
A prayer for this house of memory –
May your doors bring in minds that will learn and grow
Hearts that will feel and expand
Souls that will nurture and soar.
May your gates burst open and spill into the streets your stories of courage and compassion
Your tales of dignity and
the lovely colours of our differences
Your conviction that remembrance brings redemption
humanity heals a wounded spirit
And generosity grows in the broken bones
That hatred only hurts and festers
That love is stronger than death
That light lingers and gently insinuates itself into the shadows and shrouds.
In this house of memories we will let the light in
From this house of memory we will let the light flow out..
Ralph R Genende OAM
