Washington DC Holocaust Memorial Museum

I have been waiting to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum since I arrived in Washington D.C.  Though admission is free, getting tickets can be challenging.  There are only so many tickets per day, and per time.  When I saw some tickets were available on Saturday, I jumped on them.  So far this has been one of my favorite places to visit in DC.  The architecture is amazing, the permanent exhibit it well done/ moving to the core, and the memorial is beautiful.

What an Experience

Walking up to the Holocaust Memorial Museum building the outside could blend in to the Washington DC architecture around it, but walk inside and you are transformed to architecture that looks like it is a mixture of a prison and train station which seemed intentional.

While you are allowed to take pictures (no flash), Dustin and I really walked through it to experience it.  Most of the pictures we took were so we could read later about what we were seeing.  To be honest with you, the amount of people (despite the efforts of the museum with timed tickets) was crazy.  We spent 75% of the time navigating people and 25% of the time experiencing the museum.  To be fair, the timed tickets were null and void when people are moving slow to take in the museum itself.  Can’t be too mad that people were really trying to absorb the museum.  We decided that we would go back in the fall on a school day to go again.

Highlights

• The Memorial: Names of the death camps and concentration camps are honored to remember all the victims of the Holocaust surround an eternal flame.
• Wall of Heroes:  A part of the exhibit the remembers and honors those who risked everything to help victims of the Holocaust.
• The Room of Shoes: A room of the exhibit that has the shoes of victims.  It is one thing to see something exhibited.  It is another thing to have your senses overwhelmed with sight and smell.  You can actually smell the shoes, and I cannot describe the feeling besides to say we were both overcome.
• Ghetto Cobblestones: A section of the exhibit allows you to walk on cobblestones from Warsaw located inside of the Warsaw Ghetto.
• Wall of Names: A glass wall that flanks a side of a walkway overlooking the lobby which houses the first names used of all those who were victims of the Holocaust.
• Train Car:  A train car that was an example of a car that would have held upwards of 100 people, transporting them to a camp.  The cramped-darkness was an immense visual for everything you have heard.
• Survivors Documentary:  When we were walking through the last room of the exhibit there was a movie playing on repeat where survivors were discussing different things about the Holocaust.  Though we did not stay for the whole movie, a woman discussing her experience stood out to me.  She was telling the audience about her arrival to a camp, where a formidable woman was barking orders at them.  The survivor went on to say that at that moment she knew this was going to be the “worst thing ever.”  She then went on to explain that the woman who was so formidable at first ended up saving her life and those lives of some other children.  The survivor said “That woman pinned the lie to the lips of those who said that they had no choice.”  Wow.

These were only a few things that really moved us within the building, but as I said, we are going back when the traffic calms down in the fall.  We know we will spend hours in the exhibits.  DC Holocaust Memorial Museum should be visited often to honor and remember those affected by the genocide.

One of the most amazing things to me was a survivor (Margit Meissner) was doing a book signing of her autobiography “Margit’s Story.”  In a museum store filled with souvenirs, we could think of nothing better to bring home than a signed autobiography of a Holocaust survivor.

The following quote was at the very end of the exhibit before you walk out.  All we can say is visit if you live in town or if you travel to Washington DC.  Amazing.