Posted on 02/05/2003 11:47:23 AM PST by yonif
Israel's military attach to the United States, Colonel Moshe Ivri-Sukenik, on Wednesday said Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the explosion of NASA space shuttle Columbia, will be laid to rest in Israel on Tuesday.
Ramon is to be honored with a full military burial, Ivri-Sukenik said.
Also Wednesday, the Israeli memorial center for the Nazi Holocaust opened an exhibit to show the original of a drawing copy Ramon carried into space. The drawing was made by a 14-year-old boy who was later killed in a Nazi camp.
Ramon's remains will be flown to Israel next week. NASA officials earlier said the organization had positively identified Ramon's remains.
Brig. Gen. Yisrael Weiss, Chief IDF Chaplain, said further astronauts' remains uncovered in the morning would have to undergo further DNA tests to determine whether any belong to Ilan Ramon. The rabbi also confirmed that the remains were indeed those of the Israeli astronaut.
"We know as of this morning that other remains have been found, we don't know whose they are. They have been sent for DNA exam and we shall know in another two days," Weiss said on Army Radio.
Weiss said that while he didn't want to use the word joy, "I certainly want to express tremendous satisfaction that Ilan Ramon is to brought to burial."
Looking at the Israeli air force flag found along with Ramon's remains, Weiss said, "fill me with such a deep Jewish and Israeli message. For me it is as though Ilan Ramon lives on as a representative of the Jewish people."
Although he wasn't a religious Jew, the fact that he brought a Torah scroll into space and ate Kosher food on the shuttle, "sent a tremendous message to all of us, particularly in these times," when Israelis are so fragmented between the Orthodox and the secular, Weiss said.
As far as Halacha is concerned, Ramon can be buried as long as the smallest remains are found, but the family may want to wait to see if more are recovered, Weiss added.
He said the US authorities also had some technical details to take care of before releasing the remains.
Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial and research center for the Nazi Holocaust of World War II, on Wednesday opened an exhibit displaying a 1943 drawing, "Moon Landscape," by 14-year-old Czech Jew, Peter Ginz. Ramon carried a copy into space.
The boy made the drawing before he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he died - one of 6 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. The Yad Vashem display includes other drawings by Ginz.
Earlier it was believed that Ramon was carrying the original pencil drawing. Instead, he had a copy made to NASA specifications, said Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev.
Ramon's mother and grandmother survived the Auschwitz camp.
"When we came across 'Moon Landscape,' we knew that we had something personally relevant for Ramon," Shalev said. "Not only was Ginz murdered in Auschwitz, but his drawing reflects his vision of how earth would look from the moon," he said.
NASA officials told Ramon's family that the astronauts had between 60 and 90 seconds between the time that they could see something had gone wrong and the shuttle broke into pieces and they were killed, Wolferman said.
"These seconds are always spinning around in my head," Wolferman said. "It's very difficult, as if I'm with them and I try to imagine what they went through. One second is like 20 years. I can't explain it, it's hell, hell in the sky."
The Israeli Post Service will issue a stamp commemorating Ramon on the year's anniversary of his death. Communication Minister Rubi Rivlin told Israel Radio that both in life and in death, Ramon was a figure worthy of being nationally immortalized.
(With The Associated Press)
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