“There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.” – Hannah Senesh
Latrun is a strategic and historical area on the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It is there, in the Ayalon Valley, where the sun stood still for Yehoshua, so he could defeat the Amorites, where Yehuda HaMaccabi ambushed Greek soldiers, where battles were fought in Israel’s wars from the ancient past to the present, and where Yad La-Shiryon memorial to armored corps soldiers killed in action, and the military tank museum stands.
So it is only fitting that the museum dedicated to the Jewish soldiers who fought in World War II, the brave men and women from countries across the globe, be housed there as well. The new Chaim Herzog Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II is an innovative group of exhibits commemorating the valor of the war’s Jewish soldiers, a population generally neglected and eclipsed by the Holocaust, and the subsequent War of Independence and establishment of the State of Israel.
The museum was the brainchild of a group of veterans who wanted to pay proper respect to the oft-ignored one and a half million Jewish soldiers who fought in the Allied armies during World War II, 250,000 of whom died in battle and 11,500 of whom were American.
Zvi Kan-Tor, 73, a retired commander in the IDF Tank Corps, is the director of the museum. “We tried to address a chapter of Jewish history that no one talks about. This is a great part of our history that has fallen between the cracks.”
Together with MG (R) Chaim Erez, Dr. Tamar Katko, Arkadi Timor, z”l, Shlomo Shamir, z”l, and Yitzchak Arad, z”l, Kan-Tor set about creating the museum over 20 years ago. David Azrieli as well as the Government of Israel provided funding and, later, the Herzog family joined the project seeing it to completion, in honor of their patriarch, President Chaim Herzog.
The 2,300 square meter facility, along with the spacious grounds, is now open to the public, the only museum of its kind in the world.
The guided tour is relegated to an hour and half but it would take at least five times that to properly see every aspect of the museum which has many wings, interactive exhibits, and films recreating the valor of the period.
The first movie is an introduction, going back in time, in a kind of film elevator, to the beginning of the war. Rod Lurie, the Israeli-American director, who had come to the museum to do some film-related research called the film, “Fantastic and outstanding.” Lurie is a graduate of West Point and served in the U.S. Army as a Captain, while his father Raanan Lurie, served in the IDF, from its inception, and through its various wars, even after immigrating to the United States.
The world’s Jewish soldiers made a disproportionate contribution to the war effort, many of them volunteering. An added attention to detail was to keep the stories of some of the same soldiers reappearing in different contexts so that we experience more of a connection to them and a greater sense of continuity.
Among the exhibits are paintings by Jewish soldiers, pictures taken by Hannah Senesh, displayed here for the very first time, which she was not able to develop before she was killed, letters, weapons, and artifacts of the period. It’s evident that a great deal of research went into the exhibition.
The films are a montage of documentary footage combined with reenactments depicting scenes from WWII. Some use holographic technology that make them come to life, almost literally. Filmed in Ukraine and Israel, using actors who so resemble the soldiers they are portraying that one of them showed a picture of the soldier he was portraying to his mother and she commented what a great picture it was of him.
“A lot of thought went into every single part of the museum,” says Rachel Grunbaum, who helped create the marketing materials for the museum and supports its PR.
The people and events come to life in these exhibits. The museum is acoustically designed so that people listening to testimonies on one side of the room cannot hear those on the other side. The actual footage, combined with historical recreations and detailed biographies, creates a moving, realistic, commemorative, and informative narrative of the times.
Women’s contribution to the war effort is duly emphasized and no Jewish demographic has been ignored.
The museum also features an almost completed café adjoining a scenic terrace, a library housing 4,500 books, an archive, and a lecture hall. There is a rooftop space ideal for hosting events, offering a panoramic view of the stunning Israeli landscape.
Although hundreds of thousands of names have been uploaded into their database, the museum is looking to collect more. If you have any information of a Jewish soldier who fought in World War II anywhere in the world, please contact them through their website so they can add it to their database, and so the information is not lost forever. https://www.jwmww2.org/Full_Registration.
Chaim Herzog, for whom the museum has been named, features in the exhibition. Israel’s 6th president, and father of its current president, took part in the invasion of Normandy as well as other significant battles.
The Chaim Herzog Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II succeeds in rectifying the error of omission by paying tribute to the brave Jewish soldiers of the Second World War. It also provides new information of oft-ignored groups like the partisans in Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy and North Africa. No part of the world has been ignored, nor has any contribution by Jewish soldiers and officers.
The Holocaust too is properly represented as many Jewish soldiers were among those who liberated their co-religionists in the camps.
Reenactment of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and many of the heroic efforts of resistance are also portrayed. Kan-Tor says that when we commemorate Holocaust Memorial and Heroism Day, the Heroism gets shunted to the sidelines and we focus more on the Holocaust. He hopes this museum will give the soldiers the honor and commemoration they deserve.
A remarkable exhibit shows a funeral being attended both by British soldiers and Nazis where a priest stands by while El Maleh Rachamim is recited. The soldiers were a group of POW Israelis who had volunteered for the British army.
Another scene depicts commemorating Tisha B’Av in a POW camp. Many Jewish soldiers’ heroics involved the practice of their Judaism under impossible conditions, which, off or on the battlefield, is the trademark of the Jewish soldier.
The museum is an educational and inspiring experience.
Handicapped accessible. Affordable entrance fee.
The museum’s website where you can make a donation, contact the museum about adding names to their database, purchase tickets and donate books: https://www.jwmww2.org/en.
Other sites of interest in the area: The International Center for the Study of Bird Migration (ICSBM), theYad La-Shiryon memorial to armored corps soldiers killed in action, and Military Tank Museum, Canada Park and Mini-Israel.
