It is hard to walk away from the National Holocaust Museum without feeling some sort of sadness for our species as a whole. Even after years of research into the topic of the European Holocaust of the 1940's, I still wasn't completely prepared for the experiences that welcomed me after walking through the front door. To say that there was one or two definite areas of the building that effected me profoundly would be a lie, because the whole place in general effected me in some way and I couldn't dedicate enough pages in this letter to each and every one.

The over all experience, however, plays on the human senses more than any other museum I have ever witnessed. The tour guide said that the goal of the architects was to create an environment similar to that the Jews witnessed and lived through during this time period, which came forth during the main area of the museum, The Permanite Exhibit. Unlike most museums, the chronological tour through history starts at the top floor and then works its way down to the second. The feeling of compression hits you right off the bat with the elevator ride to the fourth floor. Grey metal walls encase the chamber full of riders, creating a dim world in which claustrophobia quickly sets in. The first image you see after exiting the elevator is a blown up picture, the size of a wall, of US soldiers looking at a pile of half cremated prisoner corpses.

You can see the disbelief pouring from these war hardened eyes, which, to me, was the reason for the construction of the museum in the first place; to recognize that the Holocaust did happen, even though the horror that awaited us in the later floors was so brutal that you didn't want to believe it happened. I stared at this portrait for almost ten minutes, wondering how these men who have seen so much can even begin to understand what they where seeing. To say this worked as an effective preface to that laid in front of me would be an understatement.

The forth floor could be best characterized as the most colorful, from the somber colors of the dull white and blue striped camp prisoner uniforms to the brilliant red, tan, and black of Nazi propaganda posters and children's school books. What struck me the most on this floor was the use of my human senses to gain a feel for the times of the Nazi rise to power. The barking of Gorbells and Hitler from taped Nazi rallies gave me the sensation of the contrast between the glorious rise of Nazi power and the slow deterioration of the Jewish position in German society. The slow rush of other visitors down the dimly lit corridor (You only have 3 and a half hours to view the whole exhibit) made me feel like I was being forced/drawn into a trance, either by personal curiosity or having to follow the group, much like the German society of 1933.

The uniqueness of this museum is how they intertwined German events with the responses from the United States and other European nations. This never more evident near the end of the floor with the newsreels of American refusal to allow more Jewish immigrants during the time period of 1933 to 1939, as well as some of the harsh refusals by other nations to allow Jews to immigrate from Germany to the safety of the West. This aspect of the museum turned what was once a European incident to me into an American incident, based upon the silence of the United States during the years that lead to the Final Solution. Even though I feel there where other forces occupying the Americans during this time and the fact that know one knew, not even the Nazis themselves, as to what extreme the German government would go to eradicate their undesired populations, our policy of silence during these years is something that should haunt this country for eternity.

The journey to the third floor was through a glass bridge. Etched in the glass were the names of the many small and large Jewish communities wiped out by the Nazi's during their expansion into other nations. This struck me because of the symbolic visual effect this created. You are only able to read the town names when you look up close, training your eyes on the engraved words. To me, this shows how it is easy to forget the specific people and communities effected by the Holocaust based upon the shear number of victims.

The third floor chronicled the work and death camp experience. To fully attempt to describe the many different exhibits on display would take an entire book. There were two things that struck me the hardest. The first was standing inside one of the cattle cars used to move the prisoners to the camps. I'm not sure if this car was a replica or the real thing, but either way, this experience of standing inside a space no larger than our living room gave me the feeling of size for the first time. I felt very compressed and claustrophobic, even though I was standing inside the middle of the red and brown car with maybe five other people.

Of all the places I have been in the last few years, I have never felt this confined physically. Just imagining this car filled past capacity with people still makes me, as I'm writing this letter in the safety of my dorm room, breathe a little deeper and appreciate the air being able to enter and leave my lungs freely. The other artifact that got to me was a smaller version of the famous 'work brings freedom' sign that hung over the gates into Auschwitz. Touching the cold, rusted steel of the metal frame sent chills up my hand and down my spine.

The second floor displayed the time of liberation of the camps. Again, trying to chronicle how every thing I saw made me feel would take to long to write about, so here are a few of the most important images I was left with. The first one that jumps out at me was the room of shoes. The first thing I encountered was the musty-dank smell of old leather that had been stored inside a damp basement for too long. Considering that each shoe inside the huge pit was once worn by a prisoner of the death camps, the shear volume of the shoes displayed makes the experience a little more personal. After this, there was an exhibit displaying a picture of a room full of human hair, with the side description stating that when the Russians liberated Auschwitz, they found 15,000 pounds of human hair, which was slated to be used in many common German products such as pillows and textile lining. Like Eskimos after the have killed a whale, the Nazis used every by-product they could from their prisoners, right down to their hair.

After leaving the Permeate exhibit, I went over to the Hall of remembrance. This large, round room is a shrine to the Jews and other prisoners who died in the death camps. After the experience I had walking through the museum, I couldn't help but light a candle for each camp recognized inside this shrine. The one thing about this place that I feel was important was how the museum first entrances you, then victimizes you, and then lets you go with a realization that if it can happen to anyone, even yourself.