Kate Reinhardt

20 September 2004

A Journey through the Holocaust in 2004

Why should every person visit the Holocaust Museum at least once? Six Million dead within a few short years. Men. Women. Children. Gassed. Burned. Starved. Infected. Experiments. Tortured. Beaten. Massacred. The death and destruction of the Holocaust must be remembered in order to prevent such an atrocity from occurring again. Studying history is a way to prevent people from repeating the mistakes of the past and the Holocaust Museum is a phenomenal way for persons living in current and future eras to try and comprehend the atrocities of past generations; with this knowledge one can only hope that the Holocaust will remain a thing of the past.

Why focus on the Holocaust? What about all the other mass killings in the world? Why should the Holocaust be considered so important? What about; “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”, the Russians, Somalia, and Cambodia? All these were mass killings, some would argue that while they do not support these mass murders, they are just a part of how our world operates, it is for these naïve, uniformed members of society the Holocaust museum is most important. The millions of people who were slaughtered by order of the German government were destroyed simply because they did not fit the specific society which Hitler envisioned. Destroyed by government order and thought of as the rats of society, Jewish persons and other outcasts of society were dehumanized and slaughtered as pests would be exterminated. The most moving way to experience the Holocaust is through the eyes of a survivor, the life size exhibits, from the tight elevator to the fourth floor, to the dark interior, to the actual artifacts like the box car and clothing from the time and most significantly the personal accounts of survivors tie together to help create the atmosphere present at the museum. In order to truly understand the terrible event that is the holocaust, a person must, see the larger than life murals of the smoldering bodies; touch the words in the holocaust survivor book; watch the movies accounting the experiences of survivors and experience the museum. Books are not enough, the Holocaust is not like Medieval history or the history of WWI where it is enough to simply read the text books, watch the movies and learn what history is about. In order to truly learn and understand the history of the Holocaust it is important to experience the anger that comes from understanding the injustice, cry at the deaths of so many innocent people, and feel sadness for those who didn’t make it as well as for those who suffered so much.

Why should everyone visit the Holocaust museum at least once? The Experience. The Feeling. The Future. Each generation is charged with the future, their future. I was given the unique opportunity of experiencing the Holocaust Museum as few are able, in the company of a Holocaust survivor. Nothing will ever compare to hearing the heart wrenching story from a living breathing survivor, however, soon it will be an extinct experience; as those who survived the Holocaust are aging. The Holocaust if fairly recent, recent history is recounted by those who lived through it. However, the generation that saw first hand the devastation of the Holocaust is slowly disappearing and being replaced it is important that everyone, even those who did not live through it, understand how the Holocaust came to pass and how truly horrific it was. The Holocaust museum allows people to experience the Holocaust as nothing else can. The Holocaust Museum is one of those phenomena which all people should experience; it is a way to share with the world at large the tragedy that is the Holocaust and through knowledge, keep history from repeating itself.