6 Million Reasons To Remember

As long as we live, now we will remember the delicious faces of the children and the proud look of the parents who had primped them for the cameras, just so, to show them as good little boys and girls, exceptionally good.

At first, many of us will cry because we know soon they were to die, children, parents, grandparents, all. But I think that soon after, before they leave the building where the pictures hang, many visitors will think of them as the gift to us they are.

We are able now to see the children and their relatives as they really were, full of the juices of life - not as the skeletons and ashes that the Germans made them, and made us think of them so, ever after.

Millions will see the pictures - Americans from all over the country and foreigners from all over the world. We from New York and roundabout will now be honored by having the children and their families among us, in the new Museum of Jewish Heritage at 18 First Place, in Battery Park City.

The building is six-sided, one for each million dead. But 18 is the numerology for the letters of the Hebrew word chaim, which means life.

That is the double message of the museum. It was the inspiration of those who founded and created it as memorial to the Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust to present them not only as victims but as people who were the living before they became the slaughtered, and should be so remembered.

Their religion, culture and accomplishment are presented as living too - before and during the Holocaust and now afterward, when the power of the eager executioners is gone.

The museum is no attempt to show that justice triumphed, because it did not. All the murdered are gone; some of their murderers live still, getting German pensions.

Nor does the museum tell us how the Holocaust could have happened. People talk in this museum, in short video documentaries throughout the building. In one, Jews debate God’s role, if any. Not knowing, I exempt Him and just blame Nazi Germany.

The museum is a river. On the first floor, it flows full and nourishing - the Jews a century ago. They worked - mostly that was what they wanted to do with their lives, the tailors, scientists, teachers, house painters and merchants. And they had families, prayed and danced at weddings. When they raised a glass in toast, it was always “to life.”

On the second floor, the river is foul with the blood of hatred. It is hard to walk along this part of the river, but not as hard as dying in it. It becomes a matter of respect, not only to the dead but to oneself, to walk slowly on the second floor.

Even here the river flows. This is where the pictures are, 2,000 of them, taken in France, of French Jews and Jews who fled there. The flight was futile but the pictures say their living was not.

On the third floor is what the killers never dreamt could happen but can now see from hell - the Jewish renewal, particularly in America and Israel. Life again is work, family and religion.

It is impossible not to understand, at number 18, that this people survived because of its common practice of the religion of Judaism, not simply the culture and ethnicity of Jewishness, which many of us were raised to believe was our total heritage.

The museum, dedicated Thursday and open to the public Monday, was the idea of Edward Koch when he was mayor.

Among those who made it happen were District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, George Klein and Howard J. Rubenstein. New York state’s Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani helped clear the way. Its director is David Altshuler and chief curator Yitzchak Mais.

In the 16 years it took to finance and build, some Americans asked why another Holocaust memorial, when Washington’s is so brilliantly done. The new museum itself answers the question, appropriately enough, with other questions. Why another temple or church? Why another great painting, or any act of loving creativity? Why another service read, flower dropped or candle lit?

“Remember … Do not forget!” says an inscription from Deuteronomy in the rotunda. Immediately below is this from Jeremiah: “And … there is hope for your future.”

On the second floor, children and parents say, “Look, see us alive.”