“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death I will fear no evil for Thou art with me”xxxx
XXIII psalm

The "Jewish question" and the idea-fix of its "final solution" have existed as long as the Jewish people. Human comprehension defies all explanations for this fixation. Its reoccurrence over the period of milleniums does not fit the theory that a nation that does not know its own history will be doomed to repeat it. Over the course of history, nations and states that have attempted to solve the "Jewish question" ceased to exist and, thus, forever lost the chance to examine their past. Those who replaced them did not bother to understand foreign histories. In the end, only the collective memory of the world Jewry kept a record of those failed efforts.

The last major attempt to solve the "question" turned into a global conflict - World War II - which resulted in the following:

• At the very center of the Western civilization, 6 million of the Jewish people, including 1.5 million children, were massacred;
• The state that attempted to reach the "final solution" of the "Jewish question" ceased to exist;
• The nations that won the war felt, perhaps, somewhat embarrassed for allowing this massacre, which became known in history as the Holocaust/Shoah/Catastrophe, and did not try in earnest to prevent the creation of a Jewish state, Israel, on land where two other jewish states were destroyed a couple of millennia prior to these events; and
• Without delay, in fact just several hours after the creation of Israel, new contenders to dealing with the "Jewish question" - the neighboring Arab nations - sent their troops into Israel in order to destroy the newly settled Jews.

The war between Israel and its Arab neighbors has been going on and off for over half a century and slowly is turning into a new global conflict. The course of events certainly may give one a feeling of dejа vu:

In 1984, Holocaust survivors - citizens of Miami - organized a committee that directed an architect-sculptor Kenneth Treister to create a memorial in honor of the memory of 6,000,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The Memorial was finally open in 1990 in Miami Beach, Florida, and is visited by about 500 people every day, which amounts to over 2,000,000 visitors since the opening of the site.

Being on the grounds of the Memorial gives one a very surreal feeling. Away from the residential areas, in the foreground of a palm forest, you find yourself facing a semi-circle of a colonnade of Jerusalem stone columns. The colonnade supports a wooden arbor with white bougainvillea vines. The structure serves as a frame for a perfectly round mirror of a dark pond in the middle of which, you can see a focal point of the Memorial - an island with a sculpture of a giant hand stretched towards the sky.

Numerous bodies of the victims cling to the arm with the tattooed-on an Aschwitz prisoner's number. The stretched out hand of the sculpture is holding still as if asking for help.	At all times, day or night, from every part of the Memorial, you can see the sculpture of the arm stretching out to the sky and its reflection plunging down into the dark pond water as a symbolic representation of the eternal struggle between good and evil.

Some of the water lilies bloom during the day and others open up at night, so that the pond's surface is always covered with white flowers that represent the souls of those massacred in the Holocaust.

The narrow tunnel that leads towards the island is made from the Jerusalem stone. On the walls of the hallway, there are planks with the names of the concentration camps and narrow vertical slot windows.	You can see a sculpture of a crying child in the doorway at the end of the tunnel and hear crying, which becomes louder as you get closer.

The serene picturesque views of the still dark water, light colonnade and greenery of the plants seen from the windows keeps the memory of the disappeared European culture of 6,000,000 martyred victims.



Behind the columns, there is a wall made of polished black granite panels etched with the victims' names.

My friend, Aron, is over 80. He is a Holocaust survivor who spent his youth in Aschwitz. By day, he appears to be energetic and trim. Every night though, he suffers from nightmares and bad headaches.

"This man was brought to Aschwitz after me" - Aron says looking at the pictures of the Memorial. - "You see, his number is higher than mine."

Memorial address: The Holocaust Memorial 1933 – 1945 Meridian Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139 Phone: 1-305-538-1663 http://www.holocaustmmb.org/ The Holocaust Memorial site is open to visitors from 9 AM until 9 PM daily.

Translated from Russian by Elena Antonetti.