Chapter 41 find the bottom line

The Holocaust Memorial is located next to the Hezhe Mountain in the west of Jerusalem, commemorating the six million Jews who were massacred by the German Nazis during World War II. Entering the main hall, every man has to take a small black paper hat from an old man and put it on.The main hall is dark, like a huge cave.There is a window in the roof, and a beam of light enters, directly shining on an ever-burning torch underground.The flames burned quietly, discreetly revealing the names of the modern hells engraved on the ground one by one. There is a small podium in the middle. Every year in May, the president and prime minister of Israel will stand here. The whole city whistles and all walks of life immediately stop all work and mourn for two minutes.

When I left the main hall, I returned the black paper hat to the old man at the door and said thank you. The old man nodded, looked at me with cloudy eyes, and pointed to the east.On the east side, I didn't expect that there would be a place that made me cry. It was a building with original stone structure, and the door was written in English: Mr. Abraham and his wife Itita built this building to commemorate their son Uziel, who lived in Oswell in 1944. Xin was killed. However, this is not just a private memorial, because there is also a line of shocking words: commemorate the one and a half million Jewish children killed by the Nazis.

To enter this memorial hall, you have to go through a raw stone corridor extending downward, just like entering the tomb of the most noble pharaoh.All the people walked forward heavily with their heads down. They didn't expect to see a life-size relief sculpture at the end of the corridor when they turned a corner.It was the face of an extremely innocent and cheerful child, aged between three and four, with his name written clearly under the relief: Ucel. The smiling face of a child has such a shocking power, which I have never experienced before. My heart tightened all of a sudden, and I thought, the old parents will use so many stones to keep the smiling face of their son before they die. This move cannot fail to touch the most basic conscience of mankind.

Turning in from the relief statue of Ussell, I am sure that all the people will be nailed to the ground and cannot move, because all kinds of children's smiles appear in the dark background in front of them.Boys, girls, smiling, laughing, pretending to be adults, acting like a baby, and naughty.The short hair seems to be shaking in the laughter, and all the wits are flashing in the corners of the eyes.But they were all killed! These photos found from the relics are not angry or shouting, but facing you with a smile. You can only stare with tearful eyes, motionless, and even the movement of holding a handkerchief feels superfluous.

I didn't dare to look around, but I could already feel that the old man on the right was choked and breathless, and a young wife on the left was in her husband's arms. The husband wiped his tears with one hand and comforted her with the other. s hair. Everyone finally moved and entered a night sky-like hall.Up, down, left, and right are all curved mirror structures, which make people feel like they are in a void.A few rows of candles were lit somewhere, and after several refractions, they turned into an endless sea of ​​candles. The heavy night made the sea of ​​candles similar to the sea of ​​stars, but each star was a small flaming flame.

These little flames are those children, right?There is a very light bass, vague and earnest, is it the fathers telling the children, or the old man of history muttering mournfully? Everyone who walked out of this memorial had red eyes.Everyone stopped talking, walked slowly, and finally came to a monument.The inner curved trihedron goes straight into the sky, and it commemorates all the heroes who died in the struggle against fascism, without borders or nationalities. What fascism destroyed was not just a certain nation, but all mankind, so all mankind stood on the same front.There is a small wooden boat in the corner not far away, and a note is hung next to it. It turns out that this small wooden boat was used by the Dutch rebel organization to smuggle Jews every night in the worst years. A boat can hold at most three people. One person, plus a few others, actually rescued more than 7,000 people.No wonder the flower beds and lawns around the memorial hall are engraved with a large number of thank-you plaques, thanking the people and organizations of various countries who rescued the Jews.A tree is planted next to each thank you card, and now it is full of shade.

I value the existence of such a memorial in Jerusalem, because of its existence, various religious disputes and ethnic conflicts have encountered a bottom line that truly divides good and evil.With the bottom line, there is a common language. I remember one cold and windy day last year when I came to an old stadium in Berlin, Germany, where Hitler held the Olympic Games.That sports meeting was naturally boycotted by many countries in the world, so the scene in this stadium was both arrogant and desolate.Those countries could do nothing about Hitler’s military atrocities, but they dared to boycott the Olympics. The reason was that Hitler had put on a civilized posture this time, shaking the reputation of a culture. This gave him a chance to see the bottom line of civilization.

It's unreasonable to the beast, but the beast actually talks about the Olympics, so you can have an attitude towards it. When in Rome, the shadow of Mussolini cannot be avoided everywhere. In fact, he has done a lot of great things in preserving and promoting ancient cultural relics. Sometimes he can hear the music he played on the radio, which shows that he No stranger to civilization in general; but as a fascist leader he crossed the line and thus became a historical sinner. Civilization can be an embellishment, but civilization has an ultimate direction.It is this ultimate pointing that maintains human beings.

October 30, 1999, Jerusalem, overnight at the Renaissance Hotel