One can’t express all the emotions that I felt in Yad VaShem. Hearing and seeing what the Nazis did to millions of Jews brought incredible sadness to me. However, it was important that we went to the museum even though it was so difficult to experience. It is my generation’s job to tell the story of what happened to the millions of Jews so no one can forget.
The museum is symbolic in every way – from the way it was designed and built, to its contents. We entered the museum by way of a walkway with a downward slope, representing one of the lowest points for human kind. Inside the museum the feeling was jail-like: claustrophobic with very little light entering demonstrating how the Jews felt during those dark times. Before we even got into the exhibit hall there was a short video showing Jewish life before the war. There was dancing, a group of kids from Hungary singing Hatikvah, and happy people just walking around. Also I noticed there was nothing that distinguished them as being Jewish-there were no special markings on their clothes.
The museum is built in a way that leads you where it wants – you can’t pick which path to walk around the museum. This was meant to show how the Jews couldn’t choose their path. The museum had a collection of Nazi propaganda posters which showed the Nazis as powerful, strong people. Hitler wanted to show the Aryans were the ideal superior people. He didn’t even look at the Jews as human beings. For example I saw a tool that was used to measure noses to determine if a person was a Jew. While the Jews were in the ghettos they were fed around 185 calories a day, which is not even the amount in a snack. Most people consume a couple thousand calories a day. The job of a parent is to provide for their kids, however in the ghettos this ability was taken away. People had to go to the last resort which was having children sneak under fences and smuggle food.
As we exited the museum we were walking upward, representing coming out of those horrific times. The tour ended on a positive note as we discussed when God told Abraham he would make the Jewish people as numerous as the stars in the sky. The stars in the exhibit represent the lives that were cut short, and how humanity was robbed of its future. For all we know, the victims could have been the next Albert Einstein, or found a cure for cancer. Each life lost was remembered by a star.