On the Holocaust and the Story of My Great Great Uncle's Tree

I am going to attempt to describe something that can't really be described. It's an experience that I realize is extremely unique and hasn't been experienced by any BYU Jerusalem student in the past. I feel extremely blessed and inspired by this experience so I'm dedicating this entire blog post to it.

When I found out I was coming here to Israel, my mom and grandma told me that I had an ancestor with a tree dedicated to him at the Yad Vashem holocaust museum here. I didn't research this ancestor until this week and found out that my great grandfather's brother/my great great uncle has an incredible story about helping the Jews in the holocaust. I shared this story with my Jewish professor who teaches our Judaism class and he was really excited about the story and so were my other professors.

Today was the day we went to the holocaust museum in Isreal called Yad Vashem. It was something all of us knew would be an incredible experience but we were all a little nervous about our emotions before we went. I've been to the holocaust museum in Washington D.C. so I knew what to expect but after spending so much time this semester learning about Judaism and being around Jewish people, I knew this experience would be especially profound.

When we got off the buses, the first part we walked through was called the "Righteous Among the Nations" and is a beautiful path through a lot of trees dedicated to those who helped save the Jews during WWII. I knew that one of these trees was dedicated to my ancestor Jan Giliam but I didn't know where to find it because there were too many. My professor had me talk a little about my ancestor's story but I definitely didn't do the story justice because I barely knew the story myself. It was cool but I wanted to find his actual tree and so did two of my professors.

We walked through some gardens and saw some really cool memorials. One that was especially touching was a memorial for all the children killed in the holocaust. We walked through a garden into a dark building with lit up pictures of children who were killed. We kept walking and it got darker and then we entered this room with lots and lots of candles behind glass and I don't know how they did it but there were so many mirrors reflecting the candles that innumerable little lights could be seen in every direction. It was beautiful but sobering knowing that out of all the thousands of lights we could see there wasn't even as many lights as children killed. Throughout seeing this, we listened to names of children and their ages being read. That definitely set a somber mood for the rest of the day.

We were let free to roam the museum ourselves. It was obviously sad but very well done. The thing that touched me the most was videos of the accounts of the survivors telling their stories about the mass killings. I realized today that no matter how much I try to understand this awful atrocity, I will never be able to even believe it was real. We had a holocaust survivor come and talk to us on Wednesday night who survived 9 different Nazi concentration camps during the holocaust- the only one in the world who survived that many and who is still living. It was really awe-inspiring listening to his story and one thing he said that helped me was that he still doesn't even believe it happened and he experienced it, so he doesn't expect us to be able to believe it.

After I got through the museum, my Judaism professor excitedly told me that with the help of the museum staff he was able to locate my great great uncle Giliam's tree! He said it was pretty close so after everyone met up, we all walked over to it. This is the part I don't know how to describe and certainly can't do my emotions justice in writing. Family legacies are something that can deeply move you if you let them. The museum staff gave us a printed version of the story that did it a lot better justice than I could have, so I read it to the class while standing next to the tree. About a third of the way in it struck me how amazing this experience was and I made every effort to fully absorb the moment for everything it was. Here is my great great uncle's story from the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum:

Giliam FAMILY
Rescue Story
Giliam, Jan (1914 - 1968 )
By mid-1942, it became clear to Jan Giliam, a police detective from Haarlem, that the Germans were serious about removing all the Jews from Holland. In July 1942, Mr. J. de Vries, the Jewish owner of a store Jan frequented, received an order from the German authorities to report for labor in the east. Jan urged him and his family to go into hiding. He also offered his home as a temporary way station. Jan’s modest apartment, already inhabited by himself, his wife, and three teenage daughters, was simply too small to shelter Mr. de Vries, his wife, and their five children permanently. Within a few days, Jan managed to arrange permanent hideouts for the fugitive family: some were to remain in Haarlem and one daughter was sent to Jan’s nephew in Friesland. Several months later, the fiancé of one of the de Vries’ daughters, Simcha van Frank, came to Jan, also seeking a place to hide. He stayed with Jan for two nights before relocating to a permanent shelter where he remained until the end of the war. Jan helped many other people in the same way. In February 1943, Jan was betrayed, arrested by the Gestapo, and taken to the Euterpestraat, the SS-headquarters in Amsterdam and then to the Amersfoort internment camp. While there, he succeeded in sending out a warning to the de Vries family and the members of the van Frank family for whom he had also found a safe shelter. Only after he heard that they had received this message and had moved to safety did Jan succumb to torture and admit to having helped Jews. For unknown reasons, he was released. Upon his discharge, he immediately contacted those in hiding to check if they were still safe. He remained in contact with them until the end of the war. Jan provided those in hiding with food and food coupons, as well as being a regular visitor and providing emotional support. Also, as a member of the local police force, he passed on information about imminent razzias. Jan, a devout Christian, knew that during all the time he was involved in illegal activities, he was putting his life and the life of his family in jeopardy. He never received financial compensation for his perilous activities. All the members of the de Vries and van Frank families survived the war and remained in contact with Jan afterwards.
On September 7, 1977, Yad Vashem recognized Jan Giliam as Righteous Among the Nations.

http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4015011

There are hundreds or maybe even thousands of trees like my ancestor's planted on the grounds of this museum and each one of them has a unique and awe-inspiring story like my ancestor's. It renewed my hope in humanity that I was starting to doubt after the heart-wrenching museum experience. It felt incredible being able to share my ancestor's legacy and be the first out of my extended family to see the tree that was planted in his honor. I placed a pebble on a branch to leave a little mark and took a leaf from the tree so I can remember that experience.

A Photographic Essay of the Past Few Weeks

These have been an awesome few weeks! Here's some photos to give you a glimpse of some recent happenings.

Garden of Gethsemane on a Sabbath afternoon. It's so surreal to think that just a short walk from where I live, the most important event in history took place.

Almost every Sabbath, I walk to the Garden Tomb. There, groups of students like to sing a few hymns and have time  to read scriptures and think about the great event that happened there- the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. This has become my favorite part of the week because of the peace and Spirit I am able to feel there.

Getting some gelato one night in West J

Jewish quarter of the Old City

Writing notes at the Western Wall

Western Wall/Wailing Wall- this is the only wall that remains from the second temple that was destroyed in 70 AD. Jewish people gather here all the time to mourn, pray, and leave notes in the cracks of the walls. They are still waiting for the temple to be rebuilt.

Leaving my mark at the Western Wall

View of West Jerusalem from the Tower of David Museum

View of the Old City from the Tower of David Museum (we didn't care much for the museum part of this museum, but we liked the view from the top)

View of the Old City from the Tower of David Museum. We spent almost an hour up there just enjoying the view and talking about life. By the way, I LOVE my friends here.

Overlooking the valley where David killed Goliath with a sling and stone - this was on our fieldtrip to the Shephelah (low Judean foothills). I could not get enough of the lush, green rolling hills!

Bell Caves at the shephelah. The limestone is soft so huge caves were dug out to collect chalk a long time ago. They also had some sweet acoustics so we sang some hymns in them.

Bell Caves

So you're at this national park with rolling green hills all around, then you walk down some stairs at the top of a hill that lead inside of the hill, and this is what you see. It's a huge underground ancient pigeon housing/breeding place that I was definitely not expecting!

These rolling hills and blue skies were to die for

A cistern at Maresha- this ancient city (about 6th century BC) was built on top of soft limestone so all the homes dug  huge basements and cisterns underneath. Archaeologists found these and connected them underground so we were able to go on a half hour walk through a bunch of these ancient homes and cisterns- it was really cool! 

Caves at Maresha

Arab culture night at the JC! This night started with some Muslim call to prayer leaders who sung the call to prayer for us and talked about it, then we had a HUGE Arab feast prepared by our fabulous chefs, followed by Arab dance instruction and then our interpretations of it to some cool Arab music. It was so fun!

Arab culture night... yeah we're pretty much really American but we tried

We found a patch of wildflowers at the Pools of Bethesda in the old city on a day we spent exploring

South Jerusalem- this is built on top of ancient ruins from the time of David in the Old Testament

Hezekiah's tunnel! This tunnel was built under the ancient City of David (ancient Jerusalem) during the reign of Hezekiah in order to bring water under the city walls to prepare for a time of siege. It's about a half hour of hiking through water in a super narrow tunnel, often having really low ceilings. It's a claustrophobe's nightmare but I thought it was pretty cool!

Pool of Siloam where Christ healed the blind man (it's a lot bigger than this but most of it hasn't been dug out)

Everywhere you go in Jerusalem, there's clothes hanging out to dry

On Valentine's day after classes, a group of us headed out to the Old City for a little bit to buy chocolates for our friends

The story of this paper chain: The night before Valentine's Day, I was handed a stack of red paper to make decorations for our Valentine's Day dance with because I'm on the Party Planning Committee. I then proceeded to hand it to my friend Nick who was supposed to help with the decorations too and went to take a shower (I'm the worst). When I came back like an hour later, I was shocked that there was this paper chain that went from the 5th floor lounge down to the 4th floor. Of course it couldn't just cover two floors, so we decided to triple the length and stayed up late working on it. We hung it across the ceiling of the 3rd floor up to the 6th floor and made a big heart on the wall to decorate for a surpise for Valentine's day morning. Then for the dance we moved it and surrounded the entire gym with it. Okay so it probably wasn't the best use of time but it was the longest paper chain anyone here had ever seen and is a funny memory.

You wouldn't think that a Valentine's day dance for only 82 students (59 of which are girls) would be fun, but trust me when I say this group of students can make anything fun. My neck is still sore two days later from whipping my hair so much. I'm lucky to have had 81 wonderful valentines this year!

I can never get enough of this view from the balcony off my room. Every day, I walk out and look at it just to remind myself it's real.

A Really Late Blog Post About Jordan

So I'm feeling like a terrible person for my recent lack of blogging, especially because so much has happened. But in my defense, I had two midterms this week and a ton of homework. I studied really hard and actually did well, so that's a huge relief and was worth the lack of blogging!

Last week we spent four days in Jordan, and it was incredible. I didn't have a lot of expectations for the trip but it was so much fun and such a bonding experience for everyone in the program. Due to the fact that I don't want to spend forever writing about it, I'm just going to copy and paste my journal entry of the trip I wrote the last night in Jordan. I hope that's okay with everyone!

Journal entry from 1/30/13:

I'm starting to fall in love with the Middle East, something I never in a million years thought would happen. I guess we'll go in chronological order:

The bus ride to Jordan and crossing the border was no bueno. The border crossing took FOREVER and a lot of time was spent patiently waiting in our bus. Luckily, the people in my class who ride a bus with me are awesome and we love spending time together. After we got across the border we had to switch busses and got a Jordanian tour guide, both of which are mandated by Jordanian law. Afterwards, we drove through the "fruit basket" of Jordan which was really green and is where most of the fruit in Jordan is grown. All along the way, Bedouin tents and shacks dotted the countryside. Sometimes it's hard to even imagine how so many people live in these little run-down places with no running water, and they've been living that way for thousands of years. We continued on our way up Mt. Nebo where Moses was shown the Promised Land and translated. I got pretty motion sick on the way up the mountain and the only thing I could think about when I was up there was where the nearest bush was in case I needed it haha. As soon as I got back to the bus I took some Dramamine and we headed to Madaba, a little city near Mt. Nebo. We went to a really pretty church that had this mosaic on the floor that's a map of the Holy Land. Before we could go in and see it though, our tour guide was going on and on about every place on the map and it took forever and meanwhile the Dramamine went into full effect and I started getting dizzy and really ridiculously sleepy. I definitely slept through parts of his broken English lecture and remember most about visiting the church being really dizzy. The mosaics were really really cool though! Then it was time for lunch and we walked pretty far across Madaba and into this really nice restaurant where they had a buffet. I can't even begin to describe how many pitas I consumed on this trip and in my time in the Middle East in general. There was this delicious beef stew thing served on rice that I loved most about the restaurant. We then boarded the bus for a 4 hour bus ride to Petra!

We all got really cozy in the back of the bus on the bus ride to Petra. The funny part is that my seat was in the second to last row and the back was broken so if I put any weight at all onto the seat it would fold all the way back onto my friend Spencer's lap who was sitting in the seat behind me and whose seat didn't go back. So that got uncomfortable really fast. There isn't much to see in the Jordanian countryside to be honest. We finally made it to Petra which has a little town full of hotels. We were greeted at our hotel with a downpour outside and madness trying to unload the bus and get inside. Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised by delicious orange drinks and a nice lobby- way nicer than I had expected our hotel to be! We went straight downstairs to the hotel restaurant where we consumed all sorts of good food and listened to this really cool Arabic-sounding music a man was playing for us in the restaurant. We dropped our things in our hotel rooms and a bunch of us congregated in the lobby and headed out into the rain because my friend Mikkel somehow managed to leave all of his toiletries at the Jerusalem center. Even though our teachers advised we didn't go out that night because we needed sleep, most of us went out anyways and I did not regret that decision. We went down the hill and into some little shops and talked to the friendly shopkeepers who I'm sure were bored because the rain kept customers away. The coolest shopkeeper was this guy who made sand bottles with dyed sand from Petra and showed us how he made them- the designs and patterns are super intricate with camels, the sun, sand, etc. There was also this man at another shop who tied a scarf around my head the way they do it in the middle east and also put this eyeliner on me. It was really fun. That night, I experienced the strangest shower of my life at the hotel because the bottom of it with the drain was way smaller than the curtains so water went all over the bathroom. It was kind of funny.

Morning of day two started with a 6am wakeup call and breakfast at the hotel. We then walked just down the street to Petra- one of the seven wonders of the world! How do I even describe this day? It was freezing cold in the morning and really wet out because of the heavy rains the night before. The canyon leading into the site that you had to walk through was washed out in places. We had to listen to our tour guide talk for a long time while we walked through the canyon, which has all sorts of cool carvings all along the way then finally the treasury started to appear and then all the sudden I was standing in front of the treasury which is carved completely out of rock and was amazing! The first thing I did was ride some camels with a bunch of other students. We just went on a short ride in front of the treasury. We then walked and saw a bunch of other tombs carved out of the side of the mountains and it was absolutely astounding. There are all sorts of Bedouin merchants along the way selling jewelry and camel rides and little Bedouin kids selling things too. Next a group of us went on a hike up to the monastery- the coolest thing EVER. It was especially cool because I didn't even know what exactly we were hiking to and was so surprised when it was so huge. The hike up there was actually really long and was full of stairs carved out of the rock and got pretty tiring but was SO beautiful. We made friends with a little Bedouin girl name Timone who hiked up it every day to sell jewelry. There were merchants all along the hike up. We stayed at the monastery for like two hours, took a ton of pictures, and had a great time. Some of my guy friends, especially Preston, dressed up as Indiana Jones which made the experience even cooler. Up at the monastery, there's a hike you can take further up to a lookout point. We did this and it was absolutely stunning up there. We took a video of us dancing up there which was really fun. We then hiked all the way down and ate lunch at a nice restaurant in the middle of Petra and I ate lamb for the first time (I have now eaten it 3x this trip). We get taken care of like royalty here at BYU Jerusalem, it is so great! I didn't have to pay for any of the meals on this trip. Next we walked and shopped at the Bedouin merchant stands. My friends Lindee and Hannah and I were bartering with this older woman for a really long time and finally made an agreement. She went to go get change and it took a really really long time and we were running out of time before we had to be back at a meeting spot. So then we had to run through the middle of the super rocky path, uphill, past all of these boys yelling trying to get us to ride camels and donkeys and cat-calling us, through a ton of Asian tourist groups, and finally met up in front of the treasury. And Petra is HUGE. Way way way bigger than my imagination saw it before I came. We then walked with our group out of the canyon and met up with horses which we got to ride back to the busses. The horse guide gave me a whip to whip the horse and as I was attempting, I managed to whip myself a few times as well haha. It didn't hurt too bad but the marks were funny. I got the horse to go faster and lost the horse guide but parked the horse myself- having a ton of fun along the way. We then did some last minute shopping outside of Petra and loaded the bus for a 4 hour bus ride to Amman!

We made the motto for the trip "Jump on it in Jordan" for obvious reasons

Just hanging out with Indiana Jones

Bedouin Merchant

Lookout Point at Petra

Amman was shockingly really nice. I guess I didn't know what to expect but a really nice and huge city was not exactly what I had imagined. Our hotel managed to be even nicer than the last one and the funny thing is that when we arrived I had to use the bathroom SO BAD. I got off the bus and ran around the hotel trying to find a bathroom because my roommate had taken off to the hotel room with both keys and I didn't know which room was ours. Finally after meeting up with her, I was able to get situated in the room. That night we enjoyed a really good dinner at the hotel and I went out to the city twice! Even though I am in the very middle of the middle east, where Americans don't usually imagine American stores and friendly people, that's exactly what I found. I didn't feel unsafe at all and there were lots of little ice cream shops and even this Nestle store which was really nice, had great cookies, and an awesome seating area some of us hung out in. It was fun because I think the store had just barely opened for the first time so they gave us lots of samples and after we'd been there awhile and some of us had bought things, they came out and gave us two big bags of cookies for free! I went back to the hotel and found out that my friend Preston had gotten his mission call and was able to Skype his parents. He wouldn't tell us yet where he was going, but he wanted to go see the city so I went out with him with two other girls. We ran around, he got a shake, and we came back just before our 10:30 curfew. I was absolutely impressed with the city of Amman and how nice everything was. Of course, we only went to one street of it and I'm sure it was the nicest street in the whole city so maybe my perspective isn't representative of the entire city. People in this city often have traditional Muslim clothing on and some of the women are fully clothed so that only their eyes can be seen. I used to view this as kind of scary before I came here but after seeing this a lot it doesn't even seem strange anymore- it almost seems strange not having my hair covered.

Thursday we had a 7am wakeup call but both me and my roommate went back to sleep and I luckily woke up at 7:45 and we rushed to get ready. We made it on time and I even had time for a quick breakfast at the hotel. The first site we saw was the citadel of Amman and it was freezing cold that early in the morning. There were some cool ruins, including the ancient temple of Hercules! We then drove quite a ways up to Jerash. On the way, we stopped at the Jabbok River and had a devotional. This is the river where Jacob split his family into two groups prior to his return to Esau, then wrestled with an angel who changed his name to Israel. This was a really cool place and I loved being able to sing hymns while sitting on rocks next to a river that had such biblical significance. Our next stop was lunch at this BBQ restaurant where we could see them making this giant pita bread we got to eat. There were all sorts of hummus and dips for it and I had a lot of fun trying them all out. The BBQ meats were really good too. From there, we then went to Jerash- which was so much cooler than I ever thought ruins could be! There were just so many intricate designs all over the columns and two big amphitheaters and a hippodrome. It was one of the ten big roman cities and was the best preserved out of all of them. It was surprisingly huge and there was so much to see! Our tour guide talked and talked but we came to a amphitheater and listened to these guys bagpiping and they were really good. Then a bunch of the students including myself went down and sang a hymn because the acoustics were awesome. It was really cool because other tourist groups loved it. After listening to our tour guide for awhile, we were let free to roam! Some of us did a dance in an amphitheater which was fun, then we just ran around with other people taking pictures at a lot of ruins and I had a blast. There was a really green grassy meadow with goats roaming and ruins and the city in the background and it was just really really pretty and sunny too. After seeing lots of things we finally came upon a bathroom and I had to go so bad that I used the squatter- the only stall available! It was quite the experience. There was a bathroom attendant who put soap on my hands and gave me paper towels, which is a normal thing here. Everyone had to run to get to the busses on time and we didn't have nearly enough time at all of the ruins because believe me when I say this place was huge! I loved every minute of that stop. We had like an hour on the bus and everyone was exhausted and I wasn't but I got some really good video of people sleeping haha. The next place we went was the royal automobile museum, where King Hussein of Jordan's car collection is on display. There were definitely some cool cars! It was absolutely pouring rain when we got out of the museum and we were supposed to go see a mosque but it was too rainy so we were in traffic for a long time (because of the rain) then had some free time at the hotel to relax. Dinner at the hotel was once again great and then a bunch of us went back out to the city to Rainbow Street again. I had Nutella ice cream which would blow your mind it's so good, then we hung out in the same Nestle store and they were cranking American music in there and loved that we were there. We were doing some dancing which might not be socially acceptable here but I don't think it mattered all the much because the store seemed so American (although maybe it did, I don't know). After getting back to the hotel, I discovered the roof of our tall hotel with some friends and was blown away at the view of the entire city! It was unreal. Definitely an awesome end to an awesome day. That brings me to right now and I should definitely be asleep. I have to say that I have been so pleasantly surprised at how much fun this trip is and I have moved from friend level with my class to family level. This trip has totally bonded us and I can't even imagine what the next few trips are going to do to us!

Temple of Hercules

  

Jabbok River

Some insanely large pitas

Ruins at Jerash

Jerash

Jerash

Jerash

How adorable is this little girl?!

Royal Automobile Museum

View of Amman from the roof of our hotel

(end of journal entry)

The next day, we packed up and headed out during an intense rainstorm. There was a lot of time spent on the bus and I was getting pretty sick of being on a bus at this point. But on our way out of the country we got to do the coolest thing ever- go to the Jordan River where Christ was baptized! By then the sun was peeking out and it was really pretty. There was a muddy path we had to take to get down to the river and I totally ate it in the mud while walking down haha. Luckily I didn't get too muddy and was able to enjoy the devotional we had there and loved the peace and Spirit we felt there. This was really a cool experience and one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Jordan River

Overall, Jordan was really fun and packed with memories. I'm so glad I was given the chance to go and hope to remember it forever.