In Their Memory -- Bearing Witness

"The material tells the story of the sheer magnitude of the destruction, murder and devastation."

"Right after October 7, there were many altruistic citizens who understood the historical import of what had just happened, and they got to work collecting and documenting."

"The alternative to accurately and adequately documenting our history, is that it can become very distorted. In the case of October 7, we saw how quickly the events were challenged or even denied. Therefore, the response needs to be a massive, robust and stable corpus of material."

"I think that what happened right after October 7 was a direct correlation to an entire population being keenly aware of the need to collect these stories immediately. This is an entire generation that learned that lesson from the Holocaust."

Dr. Raquel Ukeles, head, collections, National Library of Israel 

 

"We entered the unknown. When we began, the entire region was abandoned. With residents' permission, we started by digging through the ashes and collecting items for storage so that the community and families can have them for any future memorial they may wish to create."

"Suddenly, every object in the collection has a new identity. On October 7, victims' beautiful lives and homes were destroyed. Almost nothing remains; here and there we've found photo albums covered in soot in homes that were completely burned, which has been a great joy. But the majority of computers, photos and precious keepsakes did not survive."

"Right now, these items do not yet constitute history. Catastrophe is still happening; there are still hostages. Our role is to protect the objects by cataloguing them and providing a foundation for future use, once this ultimately ends."

"We are providing a professional platform; each community and family will decide what to do with it."

"Never before have items been collected for posterity from their original places, directly from homes and other scenes of horror."

"Their new purpose is to serve as memorials."

Dr. Nirit Shalev-Khalifa, curator, director, Yad Ben-Zvi Department of Visual History and Documentation

The National Library of Israel will serve as the central repository for the dozens of projects now collecting testimonies. Photo: Iwan Baan.

From its founding in 1892, the National Library of Israel has served as the nation's institution of communal memory, representing the land and State of Israel, along with worldwide Jewry. Funding from Israel's Ministry of Heritage, along with private philanthropies, assistance from volunteer organizations and individuals, sees the NLI in the process of gathering the stuff of remembering from the devastated sites in southern Israel where thousands of Palestinian terrorists ran amok, pillaging, destroying, raping and murdering.

Titled Bearing Witness: Documenting October 7th and Its Aftermath, the purpose of the memorial is to record the civic, political, religious and cultural impacts and discourse on and after October 7, in Israel and communities abroad through texts, videos, photographs, music, maps, websites and social media posts. In Jerusalem's Rechavia, a sister organization is pairing with the NLI to collect physical artifacts from October 7. This would be Yad Ben-Zvi, a research institute and academic publishing house founded in 1947.

Conference at Israel National Library in Jerusalem, April 7th, 2024

 

Weeks following October 7, Israel's Ministry of Heritage enlisted the two organizations for a process of preserving physical objects from the pogrom in southern Israel. Conservators with the National Library consequently moved into an empty home on Moshav Tkuma, one of the attacked villages. This is where the team of registrars and conservators from Israeli museums spend their days and sleep their nights for the duration of the enterprise. Where, among mangled ruins, bullet-riddled windows look inward at the destruction; predictable items such as a shattered mirror, scorched mattress, broken baby bottle, singed  teddy bear.

Since the National Library began collecting materials, they have amassed millions of items with the assistance of over 300 volunteer organizations and individual. The scale of the project and the number of citizens who volunteer are directly attributable to the group awareness need to preserve items reflecting an event never to be forgotten, symbolic of rejection, isolation, threats and violence, which have since time immemorial clouded the skies over Jewish life anywhere in the world.

Some 14,000 objects from 18 kibbutzim have been amassed by Yad Ben-Zvi, including the site of the demolished Sderot police station, where 35 police officers and civilians were murdered by Hamas terrorists. Joining them are the 20,000 objects collected by the producers of the Nova Music Festival, now on display in Los Angeles as part of the travelling Nova Exhibition. 

National Library of Israel October 7 'Memorial Wall'  Design: Daniel Nehemia | DNA Media

"In the Jewish tradition, the commandment to remember runs deep within our DNA. Our collective history is what defines us and is a core part of who we are."

"Jews and other people have been dealing with catastrophes whether natural or human-made, for all of history. What we do with that history will define us going forward."

"It will be challenging to ensure that these memories don't cripple us or weigh us down, but instead to honour these memories while building and creating, once again, a thriving society."

Dr. Raquel Ukeles, National Library of Israel