It is impossible to be mentally or emotionally prepared to live through the holocaust ... as close as you can get, but clearly not as real or painful as those who actually lived through it.
The day was perfect for this experience. The clouds threatened. Everyone was carrying around umbrellas. A nice man outside the museum tried to talk me into buying one. It was not raining when I came out of the metro; spritzing, not even a drizzle, just the occasional big drop. He said, it pours sometimes. I politely declined.
First you have to get a timed pass to go up to the permanent collection... and then you wait. While I waited, I visited Remember the Children, Daniel's Story. It is a recreation of a child's life from before the war through the camps. It's a compilation...there are parts that grab your heart, but there are light moments too. You follow a child's journal from the good times when they made cookies together through the ghetto where the little sister still tried to make her mother's birthday special. Finally, to the camps where the men are separated from the women and Daniel never sees his mother or sister again. It tugs at your heart, but you escape that exhibit and you think, I can do this. I know what happened.
On the elevator, you see and hear the voice of American troops as they liberate the camps. You can hear the horror and disbelief, but you still think YOU are strong. The doors open and you are on the fourth floor, pre-war Germany. You travel through the cataloging and codifying of people. You see how Hitler worked to make Germans believe in their superiority by dehumanizing everyone else. You see how the world watched Hitler disenfranchise and demoralize Jews, homosexuals, the Roma, Jehovah Witnesses and anyone who stood in his way. You see how the powers-that-be of other countries not only watched but participated in giving parts of other countries to Hitler like sacrificial lambs. And you wonder when you're democracy- and freedom-loving country will take a stand. And they don't. They never do.
Seething at the outrageous way the world looks the other way, you approach the walkway that will take you to the third floor... you walk through a hallway that has the portraits of the inhabitants of a town in Poland or the Ukraine, somewhere that Jews have lived for 900 years... and you know that they were eliminated... you know that an entire town, a civilization that had lived for almost a thousand years in that land was murdered, slaughtered. 30,000 in one day.
It is a good thing that they start you on the top floor because by the end of that, I just wanted to run out of the building and cry...but I couldn't. I had to continue to walk through history; I had to face OUR history, MY history; EVERYTHING my country has done I am responsible for, I am my brother's and sister's keeper. So are you.
It was difficult. I almost could not bring myself to read about the ghettos. I was already dreading wandering through the deportations and the concentration camps. It was already too much. TOO MUCH?? I only lost respect for my country and its hypocritical ways, I did not lose my entire family. I tried yoga breathing to steady myself, I stood up straight and I continued on.
Eventually, there was a white wall with the names of all the people who saved innocent people from Hitler. Sometimes there were stories to go with the names. Thank god, if I still believe, that there were some people who believed that innocent people should not be sacrificed to Hitler's insecurity. I read every story, thanking god for each of the souls who had risked his or her life to save the life of someone else. I needed the hope that life can conquer hate.
I made it to the end, I don't know how... I can't remember. Then there was a screen and some seats and survivors telling stories. I was drawn to the screen and I sat, trying to feel the strength of those survivors. When the man started to cry, he broke me in two. When the woman told the story of how her mother saved her sister by taking away the sister's baby knowing that all women with children were gassed immediately, I was shattered into a million pieces. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.
The final floor dumps you into the Hall of Remembrance and the eternal flame, and walls of lighted candles. I sat down there and tried to catch my breath. I didn't pray. I am not sure that I know how to anymore. I sat and felt the strength of the souls remembered there where the walls exhort you to remember, to honor the suffering, the horror, the lives lost, the hope destroyed by remembering, by pledging NEVER AGAIN.
I stepped out to a steady light rain and felt the angels weeping for the over million babies slaughtered, families destroyed, towns annihilated, and the resilience of a people who not only remember but work to keep it from happening again to anyone. And I hope for peace. Not just for those whose lives are on the line, but for my own soul.
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