Since I first learned about the trip to this museum, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. Throughout high school, I learned about the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II, both from a historical and political standpoint. In my free time, I often let my curiosity take me on random searches, leading me to find random facts and stories from the war. With this in mind, I was sure I had a general idea of what I was walking into. However, I never realized that I had really only skimmed the very tip of the iceberg. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into when I first walked into the museum this morning. I knew it was going to be difficult and upsetting, but I also knew how important it was to learn and reflect on this incredibly dark history. I thought I had a clear general idea of the Holocaust. Clearly, I did not. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw today.
As I stepped into the elevator to begin the exhibition, I already felt overwhelmingly emotional. The brief video that played as we rose to the fourth floor completely changed the mood that I had originally walked in with. As the video ended and the doors opened, I saw an image that I will never forget. It sent a shiver down my spine, and my entire body immediately became tense. As soon as I walked out of the elevator, I felt a heaviness that I had never felt before in a museum, and I carried it along with me for the rest of the day, even after I left the museum. That image is ingrained in my brain, but its brutality was arguably the perfect start to the museum, setting the tone for the rest of the exhibit.
Regarding some of the historical facts that I read, what stood out the most to me was the frustrating amount of misinformation and lies that were spread from the very beginning. I was so frustrated and upset to see how these lies were influencing people and how they led to horrible atrocities. For example, the burning of thousands of books and the censorship of information simply based on the idea that they were “un-German” was shocking. Furthermore, when people began to question these lies, they were severely punished, many losing their lives, which allowed these lies to spread more viciously. Also, as mentioned multiple times in the museum, the spread of these lies in education, including elementary school, further made these lies more impactful, making it that much more frustrating. This also connects with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the discussion we had in class. It is so jarring to see how Hitler and many others have referred to it when it is so clearly false. Even now, over a hundred years later, these lies are still spread today, regardless of the fact that they have been proven to be false.
There were many moments throughout my time in this museum that have changed my views forever. The use of sound, the architecture, the contrast of the light and darkness, and the overall organization of the museum made the experience a thousand times more impactful. This museum showed me that my education had regrettably missed arguably the most important perspective of the war, not the political or militaristic perspective, but the human perspective from the victims themselves. Today, I realized that I never truly saw history in the eyes of the victims. I only saw this history as another fact to memorize for class or another date to keep in mind. I took the humanity out of the history, and it was one of the biggest mistakes I have made in my education. Before visiting this museum, I simply memorized the number six million. But, now I know, as Abel Herzberg, a Dutch lawyer, writer, and survivor of the Holocaust, said, “There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times.”