NEWS

Account 1

by Sofia Conklin

Our trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was one I recount every moment of and will surely never forget. It began with an identification card, memorializing a real person who lived during the Holocaust. I received card #1703, a Dutch woman from the Netherlands named Selma Wijnberg. From the lobby, students were packed into a small elevator in groups of 20. With limited space to move, I thought of the cattle cars in which hundreds of Jewish people would be crammed into windowless boxes. This was only the beginning of an immersive experience.

Entering the fourth level, I was met with a photo of a liberated concentration camp. Around scattered corpses were American soldiers, who stood in utter disbelief as they witnessed firsthand evidence of Nazi’s atrocities. The rest of the floor explored the Nazi parties gradual rise to power in Germany. Through exploitation of the Reichstag fire and the state of emergency that ensued, Hitler and his Nazi’s were able to manipuale the Germans in a time of desperation. As a result, many civil liberties were suspended. I recall the frustration I felt reading the series of events that led up to the Holocaust. How did we not foresee the warning signs? How did we not prevent this?

The third level was by far the most captivating floor. It examined the Nazi policies that were implemented against the Jews and covered their gradual segregation, which included regulations on education, marriage, and relocation to ghettos. As I traveled down a wooden bridge surrounded by the remnants of a time gone, but not forgotten, I passed a brick wall that was once part of a Warsaw ghetto. A solid reminder of the imprisonment faced by the Jews. Walking through a real cattle car, the darkness was jarring and, with the exception of a barred window, light barely came through. Exiting the cattle car, a sign read overhead: “Arbeit Macht Frei”. Work makes you free. This was the slogan on the gates of Auschwitz that would have been seen by prisoners entering the concentration camp. Passing underneath the sign, I approached a model of a gas chamber at Auschwitz. Jewish people arriving at the camp were shoveled into what were said to be showers. But instead, they were doused in Zyklon B gas, which would lead to an excruciating death. The room ended with a reconstructed barrack from Auschwitz, facing you with the uncomfortable and dreadful circumstances so many were forced to live in.

The “Last Chapter” is the final level of the exhibit, which closes with the liberation of the concertation camps, the victory over Nazi Germany, the resistance efforts, and the aftermath of the Holocaust. I walked along a white wall full of names and photos of the thousands of men and women who resisted against the tyranny of the Nazi’s. In a world of monsters, there were still heroes. Whether they be jewish or not, it reflected the strength of the human spirit. Not only the spirit of those who had freedom and used it to help Jews, but also those who survived the death camps with nothing but perseverance. Their determination is what led to the Nazi’s failure.

The floor is concluded by a video of eyewitness testimonies, recounting their experiences of survival, rescue, and resistance. It truly reflects the legacy that the Holocaust left and how important it is not only to acknowledge it, but to learn from it. In the end, I walked out with my freedom. A painful reminder of those who did not get the same opportunity. But I also walked out with an obligation. For the dead and the living we must bear witness so that this crime against humanity and the lives it claimed will never go forgotten.

Account 2

by Scott Faust

The Holocaust was one of the most harrowing experiences that mankind has ever been through. The killing of millions of people, specifically the Jewish communities of Europe, caused many people to want to remember it to try and prevent something like it from happening again. One of the ways that the Holocaust is remembered is through museums. The National Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. is the United States official memorial to the Holocaust.

The visit is something that I will never forget. There is only so much knowledge that one can get through reading about something through books and the internet. But actually going to a memorial and seeing how everything is represented is a different experience. There is a certain somber feeling that cannot be replicated by simply reading.

The first exhibit of the museum iss Hitler and the Nazi’s rise to power. It details how they took control of Germany and slowly started to take over the surrounding areas. The next exhibit shows how the Nazis slowly took away Jews rights through the use of the Nuremberg Laws. The ghettos and the killing squads were the next part of the museum. It told of how the Nazis took Jewish people from there homes and put them in ghettos or killed them. Transportation and the Death Camps were the next exhibit. It detailed how those imprisoned were brought from the ghettos to the Death camps. The final part of the museum was the liberation of the camps and the survivors’ stories.

When in the museum, I had a variety of emotions going through my head. Anger. Rage. Sadness. Despair. Fear. Hearing the stories of what this group of people went through was terrible. Then seeing recreations and physical representations of what happened to them. It made the experience seem much more real. There was so much at the museum that it became hard to comprehend the brutality of the Nazi policies.

There is the fear that something like this could happen again, and has happened again. Humans seem to not learn from these horrid experiences as they keep happening. Humans need to be proactive to stop genocides from occuring, not reactive. Understanding that genocides do not occur out of nowhere is an important first step in preventing them. Recognizing the signs and immediately putting a stop to those in power would be the best way to stop them from occurring again. The visit to the Holocaust Museum made me think about the world and what needs to be done to make it better.

Account 3

by Sarah Elzamek

While it is one thing to discuss and address the tragic events of the Holocaust in class, it has come to my attention that an additional dimension was missing from my comprehension of such a critical moment in our history. My Holocaust, Genocide, and Modern Humanity class was able to take a trip to the United States Holocaust Museum Memorial, located in Washington D.C.. The museum provided a powerful lesson on the delicacy of freedom, the deceit of progress, and the need to preserve democratic values.

While inside the museum, being able to look at some of the artifacts and reading the excerpts that preceded them gave me this uncomfortable sensation, knowing that at one point in history, these artifacts were a part of the reality to many Jewish people. An aspect that striked me the most were the stories about the children, who were placed in concentration camps at super young ages. The museum displayed some artwork that the children drew at that time, revealing the devastating conditions that they faced, along with some of the memories they had when life was once normal to them. I am a firm believer that a picture is worth a thousand words, and those pieces of art served as a clear representation of this thought. It helped me understand different childrens’ stories and perspectives, and how they were able to express their feelings and emotions through art.

Overall, the museum has allowed me to understand the extreme hatred in the world, and how humanity is fully responsible for such actions. I highly encourage and recommend visiting this museum yourself in efforts to spread awareness and reinforce such valuable lessons and takeaways. It is our responsibility to maintain dignity, peace, and love within our community, in order to prevent genocide, and be able to confidently preach the term “Never again.”