The National Holocaust Museum

This is the National Holocaust Museum. It is enormous and anyone visiting should set aside several hours.

You'll need tickets to see the main exhibit. You can get them online (with an appointment time). Alternatively, you can show up early and get them first come first serve at the museum, but you may have to wait a while to get in.

Our appointment wasn't for a while, so we wandered around the other exhibits first. They have a multimedia genocide exhibit that covers current crisis, like Darfur and the DRC. Unfortunately, the exhibit is in a tucked away corner of the museum that wasn't heavily trafficked. It would be better if they focused more on getting people involved.

Another exhibit was the diary of a young boy who survived the concentration camps. They recreated the home he lived in before and the ghetto they had to move to afterwards. At the end of the exhibit, there was an activity center for people to write down their feelings about the exhibit.

There was also an exhibit about the Protocols of Zion, something I had never even heard of until recently. This book is, apparently, the go to text for all people who think the Jews are trying to take over the world. Though it was proven a fraud, it has been translated into multiple languages and can be found within all sorts of antisemitic communities.

The main exhibit, which starts with an elevator ride to the top floor, works its way down through the history of the holocaust. It covers historic antisemitism, Hitler's life, the Nazi rise to power, the ghettos, the camps, and the world's reaction.

One of the most remarkable things to me was not the stories of those people who closed their eyes to what was going on, but the ones who didn't. The entire country of Denmark banned together to save their Jews, while all those other countries did not. One entire town in France hid Jews, despite great danger to themselves, while other nearby towns did not.

I've stopped being surprised about people being caught up in a wave of evil or acting out of pure selfishness. But I am in awe of those people who fight the wave, while everyone around them succumbs. Makes me want to go to Denmark.