The United Stated Holocaust Memorial Museum is a very moving museum in Washington D.C. dedicated to telling the story of the Holocaust – the systematic killing of over 6 million Jews, as well as other targeted people groups by Germany during World War II.
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After passing through a security screening, we headed to the desk to get tickets. Timed entry tickets are required and can be reserved head of time online (with $1 per ticket reservation fee) or attained at the ticket desk. We had checked online and had seen that there were plenty of tickets available for the day of our visit and as we were unsure what our schedule looked like for the day, we just waited until we got there to get our free tickets.
After getting tickets you take an elevator to the 4th floor. The museum is arranged in chronological order so you walk in one direction around each floor, following the progression of time. The 4th floor covers the years 1933-1939. Signage and pictures discuss the Nazis rise to power and the progression of laws and actions stripping German Jews of their rights. There are also two 15-minute films on this level. There are also exhibits about how the Nazis targeted Gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled, as well as their treatment of Polish people after they conquered Poland.
The 3rd floor focuses on the Nazis ‘Final Solution’ to rid Europe of its Jewish population. The exhibits discuss how the Germans concentrated the Jews into ghettos and then sent them from the ghettos to concentration camps, as well as other instances where they simply marched them to mass graves and executed them. This level has a cattle car, as many of the Jews were transported to the concentration camps in cattle cars, as well as replica bunks that would have been where the Jews slept in the camps. Throughout the exhibits there are short video segments about different topics, as well as actual footage from that time period. Some of the footage is very graphic and the museum has placed that close to the floor and erected walls so that you have to be tall enough to peer over the wall to look down and see the footage. In this way, small children are shielded from the graphic horrors. Also on this floor is an area where you can listen to the audio stories of Holocaust survivors telling their stories.
As you go from the 4th to the 3rd floor you will pass through the “Tower of Faces”, a two-story room filled from floor to ceiling with pictures of Jewish life in Eisiskes, Lithuania, where almost the entire Jewish population was wiped out during the Holocaust. When you pass through the room going from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor you can pick up a tablet that you can aim at the pictures, and for certain pictures the tablet will show you the stories of the people in the pictures.
The 2nd floor highlights the aftermath of the Holocaust, as well as a few of the stories of those who risked their lives to help Jews during the war. Even though the war was over, those that survived the Holocaust had a long road ahead of them. They had no possessions or homes to return to and, in most cases, little to no knowledge of whether other family members survived. There is a theater area where you can watch videos of survivors telling their stories. The exhibits end at the Hall of Remembrance, a simple but moving area where the eternal flame burns, the walls are inscribed with the names of the concentration and death camps, and visitors may light memorial candles.
There are several areas of the museum that do not require a ticket. One of these is the exhibit on the 2nd floor discussing the current day genocide of the Rohingya people in Burma. The other non-ticketed exhibit is “Daniel’s Story”. This exhibit on the 1st floor is a gentle introduction to the Holocaust for younger children. The exhibit follows the life of a young boy ‘Daniel’ during the Holocaust. First, you visit Daniel’s home and see what a typical German home of the 1930’s would be like. Daniel and his family are moved to a ghetto so the next area is a replica ghetto room, with numerous families sharing one room. Next Daniel and his family are transported to a concentration camp. This is shown in a way that lets children know that it is a bleak and dismal place but isn’t overly graphic. The exhibit ends with a place that children can write down their thoughts and feelings about what they just saw.
Each floor of the museum has restrooms. No food and drink is allowed in the museum but there is a museum café right next door. The museum also has a gift shop.
My Takeaway
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is definitely worth visiting. I went with several of my young adult children and their friends. Most museums that we visit they breeze through, maybe taking the time to read a few highlights but that was not the case at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. They took about 3 hours to go through the museum, taking the time to read a lot of the information and watch many of the video clips. It is so important for each of us to take the time to reflect on the result of hatred against others, so that we can help prevent such an atrocity from happening again because, as the museum points out “What YOU Do Matters.”