United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

About a month ago we decided to fly down to Washington D.C. for a long weekend to go to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  I've been to this museum on 2 previous occasions but was anxious to go back after going to Poland and going to Auschwitz.

We had tickets to enter the man exhibit at 11:30 on Saturday morning.  We arrived at the museum when it opened at 10:00 and spent the first part of the morning at a very interesting exhibit on Nazi Propaganda.  The dictionary defines propaganda as:

information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.

It was a large exhibit about how the Nazi's used propaganda to get the people of Germany and the countries they conquered to believe what they wanted: that Jews were bad. I enjoyed walking through the exhibit and looking at the artifacts.

 

We had a few minutes before we could go into the main exhibit so we waited in the entry hall:

 

At about 11:15 we headed up the large, main elevator to go to the main exhibit.  The main exhibit is 3 floors in total and took us about 3 hours to get through.  Everyone going up the main exhibit takes a passport type card with the story of a real person inside.  Some are very sad because the person doesn't survive the Holocaust.  But there are some people who survive.

The exhibit was very educational and very informative.  Many of the artifacts, the items on display, came from the museum at Auschwitz.  There was a replica of the ghetto wall I saw in Warsaw.  Not that things didn't have meaning the first 2 times I cam to the museum, everything just seemed to have MORE meaning having actually been there.  The museum at Auschwitz in Poland has very large collections of various items collected from the prisoner's.  The museum in DC had them as well... but instead of a large room filled with pots and pans there were 5 or 6 water bottles.  I did have to keep reminding myself that NOTHING could every compare to actually going there.

I believe the museum does an excellent job at educating.  It presents the facts and the evidence in a way that keeps you engrossed and moving from one room to the next.  It's very informative and educational.

At the very end of the exhibit is a prayer hall.  Here you can have some quiet time and light a candle.  I lit a candle for Auschwitz-Birkenau and Terezin, the 2 camps I have been to.  Jenn lit a candle for a camp called Ponary, which is the camp her grandmother was at.  I found it difficult to hold back the tears here...

 

After leaving the main exhibit we went into the book store.  There are so many books out there and I've read many... but I could have bought the whole store!!  One book we did buy was called "Once the Acadia's bloomed" by Fred Spiegel.  Mr. Spiegel was actually at the museum that weekend and we were able to talk with him and he signed our books.  I've since read the book and it was an excellent book.  I wish I had read it before I met him!!

 

I think my favorite part about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the fact that it wants to educate people and get them to think.  This is what it says on the outside of the building;

 

I think about what I saw and learned in Poland every day.  In October, along with about 10 other people from my Poland group, we will be presenting at the New England Historical Associations fall conference with a Poster Session. How can we go there, see what we did, learn what we did, experience what we did, and not share that with others?  That's what we hope to do in October.

So that's when my next post will be... at the end of October!