The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s deliberate, organized, state-sponsored persecution and machinelike murder of approximately six million European Jews and at least five million prisoners of war, Romany, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and other victims. Everything started in January 1933 when the Nazis came to power in Germany. They believed that the Germans belonged to a race that was "superior" to all others, unlike the Jews who belonged to a race that was "inferior" and a threat.
Twenty-eight years ago, on April 22, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was opened. Located in the National Mall in Washington, D.C. the museum is a national institution for the documentation, study and serves as the national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.
Photo: Jeff W
Tour of the Memorial Museum
You begin your tour starting from the first floor, where you pick an identity card of a Holocaust victim, to later learn about their life struggles. Then you ride the elevator to the fourth floor, where you learn about events that took part at that time in Germany.
The middle floor covers the years 1940 to 1945, the Nazi machine’s “Final Solution” for the Jews, deportations, the ghetto experience, and life and death in the concentration camps. Survivors tell their stories in taped recordings.
Throughout the museum are artifacts like transport rail cars, reconstructed concentration camp barracks, and photographs of “killing squad” executions.
One of the most sorrowful exhibits is the “Tower of Faces,” where you will see photographs of the Jewish people who lived in the small Lithuanian town of Eishishok for 900 years, before the Nazis killed them all, in 2 days.
“The Last Chapter”, on the second floor, documents the stories of heroes, like the king of Denmark, who was able to save the lives of 90% of Denmark’s Jewish population.
At exhibit’s end is the hour-long film, in which Holocaust survivors tell their stories. The tour finishes in the Hall of Remembrance, a place for meditation and reflection and where you may light a memorial candle.
Photo: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Museum is temporarily closed. Read more information on their website and support them by making an online donation here.