The Holocaust Memorial Museum

By: Jackson Batchelder

         I had heard about it. I had pictured what it would be like in my mind. But when I got there, my assumptions were wrong. What I knew was only a small bit of things, a tiny portion of a huge piece. The intensity of everything was triple what I had thought it would be. The energy was double the power I had imagined. The things inside were real, actual artifacts. With each step I took, the power grew.

         I got into the elevator, which brought me to the top floor, where the museum starts with “The Nazi Assault”, the first part of three sections. The first thing that I saw as I stepped off the elevator was how ruthless the Nazi’s were. This was portrayed by a picture of American troops in Germany seeing the remains of Jews who had been burnt and thrown into a pile. The sight of this really made me stop and stare. This first picture really was a good example and preparation for the rest of the museum. Since American troops got to Europe towards the end of the war, they were finding out what was really going on.     

         Throughout the museum there were places that would make you realize how horrible everything was. There were certain places that did this, and some that just made you look away. For me, one of the things that did this was the tower that had pictures of everyone who lived in a village. The thing was, that every one of these people was killed, slaughtered. Another thing that really got to me was the pile of shoes that were taken from Jews before they were put into the gas chambers.

         There were all of these bad things, and it seemed like nothing good happened during the war. But there was good…some. Right as you would think you could no longer take any more of the horror, a drop of good would fall upon you. There were two that made me able to carry on: The story of the Olympics, and the people that helped out. Since the Olympics were held in Germany in 1936, the Nazis wanted to use this time to show the rest of the world that they were the superior race. But, the U.S. sent over a black man named Jesse Owens, who ended up crushing the Germans on the track.  Another thing that was like a light at the end of the tunnel was the people that helped out Jews. All over Europe there were people who would hide the Jews and help them get them to safety. People would take Jewish kids and raise them as Catholics. There were people like this all over Europe.

         By the end of the museum, I was drained. I had seen enough. I had never imagined anything to be so horrific. Though it was disturbing, it was worth knowing. It was worth going.