ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at representations of the Holocaust memory in the Israeli collective narrative, as expressed in two completed Holocaust memorials. It discusses the ways in which the proximity suggests a linkage between the Holocaust and the state, and how the different museums and memorials within Yad Vashem create a physical context for the memory of martyrdom, which is connected with the memory of national heroism. The chapter argues that the Valley of the Communities reflects an approach to commemoration that invites the visitors to experience a leap into another reality through landscape architecture. It seeks to state-organized pilgrimages of students to the death camps, which are often used to stress national messages and conclusions. The chapter suggests that the symbolic geography of The Valley of the Communities, set in its wider context of Yad Vashem and the Mount of Remembrance, recreates a similar experience for the visitors in Jerusalem.
