Devastatingly Horrific

We had the honor of visiting the Holocaust Museum in DC AND the one in Israel. I'll share about both of them here, giving you a sneak peek of our Holy Land trip that we went to this summer.

We entered the museum through this elevator. It was made to let us experience the Jews cramming into the trains to the concentration camps.

Official entrance sign underground

This is a memorial to the over six million who died during the Nazi regime during WWII. It presents a narrative history of the Holocaust: the annihilation of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany from 1933-1945.

A two stories tall memorial pictorial of those who lost their lives

A map depicting the immense growth of Hitler's movement (in red)

This is hair collected from the victims. Nazis collected and sold the hair of the dead to make slippers, pillows and mattresses.

Clay models of how the Jews were transported to the concentration camps and what happened afterwards.

The got off the trains, were separated by gender and  led underground...

... to a large room here they were instructed to removal all their clothing...

.. a deadly gas, hydrogen cyanide was used to exterminate them. The bodies would then be brought up to the floor above for cremation.

This museum was one of our sobering highlights because my daughter loves to read historical fiction and stories that are set in war times.  She wanted to see very piece of this museum but was unable to due to time. She only had 5 minutes in the bookstore which she hated because it did not give her enough time to peruse the biographical and autobiographical books of survivors.

In Israel, the Holocaust History Museum is above ground on a beautifully manicured area housing various memorials in honor of the people who died:

entrance to the museum

These name placards honored those who secretly helped the Jews during this horrific time. Many were from Poland, Austria, some even from Germany like Oskar Schindler.

Memorial Building: 1st floor rock from Galilee unsculpted and uncut just like how the holy temple was built; 2nd floor sharp lines inspired by gas chamber; 3rd floor- shape like a tent; on the floor are names of some of the concentration camps

Children’s Memorial- pillars of the children by age

1.5 million children died

Never again...