For the Dead and the Living We Must Bear Witness

We learn about genocide.  We see genocide on television, on the internet, in the newspapers.  But can we feel what a genocide is?    Is it possible to feel the starvation that the Jewish people felt in the concentration camp of Auschwitz?  Before going on this trip, I felt as if I knew all there is to know about the Holocaust.  At the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in our nation's capital, Washington D.C., all of the exhibits there sent chills down my spine.  There is literally, a seemingly infinite amount of information that I have never heard about.  Hearing the voices of actual Holocaust survivors makes the tragedy all to real.  A number of 7 million Jewish deaths is just a number but when one can put a face to each and everyone of those people, the feeling is too surreal.  When one enters the front doors, one approaches the place where there are several pamphlets which are identification cards of a person who actually went through the Holocaust.

Identification Cards

 It is a face and one becomes attached with that person.  My person was Ivo Herzer.  I felt like I knew who this boy was, like I was his friend and as I went through each floor, I become worried that my friend wouldn't make it out alive.  But as I finished the exhibit, on the last page of the identification card, it says whether or not the person lives, my person lived.  It made me happy, although I did not know him personally, the feeling of genocide became real.  This museum was truly a life changing experience.  Shouldn't the world learn from this genocide?  "Never again...." But it happens today in Darfur. This trip really opened up my eyes.

The Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.  You should definitely take a trip to this place one day in your life.

Visit the museum's online site here.