The DC Traveler

During my college days, I visited my sister who was studying abroad at the University of Munich.in Germany. While there, a relative who lived in Munich took us on a tour of the infamous Dachau Concentration Camp, just outside of Munich.  Dachau was one of the first such concentration camps designed by the Nazis, and served as a prototype for other future Nazi forced labor and death camps. 

I’ll always remember my visit, seeing the areas where prisoners first arrived and were stripped of their clothing and belongings, then on to the showers, and then the bunker, where prisoners were interrogated, punished and tortured.  The most memorable and shocking building in the camp was the crematorium, where dead bodies were incinerated. 

The memories of my visit are, to this day, still very vivid and emotional, seeing first hand, how one group of evil fanatics can persecute, enslave and murder 6 million innocent Jews, Poles, Slavs, Serbs, Russians, Gypsies, gays, and the disabled and mentally ill, as well as religious and political leaders and activists, solely for reasons of national pride and religious, ethnic or national superiority.

Each time I visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, it brings up the same emotions and questions about humanity and its treatment of its fellow man, as experienced during the Final Solution of Nazi Germany during World War II.

The three floors of the holocaust museum present a narrative history and timeline of the holocaust spilt into three sections - “Nazi Assault,” “The Final Solution,” and “Last Chapter.”

With more than 900 artifacts, hundreds of photographs and dozens of video monitors playing historic film footage and eyewitness interviews and testimonies, the museum tells the story of the holocaust, from the first plans to cleanse Germany of “inferior” races, to the liberation of the camps by the Allied armies.

There are also several short films (13-20 minutes each) you can attend, played periodically during the day.  Films running through July 31, 2008, include Nazi Rise to Power, Liberation, 1945, and Defying Genocide, which examines the what it takes to defy genocide using two stories, one about the Holocaust, the other about the recent genocide in Rwanda.

Additional Museum Programs - The museum hosts both permanent and special exhibits and programs, including: 

Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936 - Starting April 25, 2008

• Before the Nazi’s took power, Germany won the bid to host the 1936 Summer Olympics.  By the time of the games, the Nazis had won governmental power and used the Olympics to promote their ideology and as a tool for Nazi propaganda.

First Person - Wednesdays at at 1:00 p.m., March - August

• Join Holocaust survivors as they tell of their eyewitness accounts and experiences during the infamous period of world history.

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place (15th Street)
Washington, DC  (map it)
202-488-0400

Dates and Times - Daily - 10:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. 

Tickets - Admission is free, but timed tickets, used to manage crowd flow are required.  You can get tickets at the museum. To avoid a possible wait, especially during the busier spring and summer months, reserve timed tickets are available in advance online, or by phone at 1-800-400–9373. A $1.75 per ticket surcharge applies to advanced reserved tickets.

NOTE: Due to some of the graphic images and the realities of the holocaust, the museum is not recommended for children under the age of 10.

Nearest Metro Subway Station - Smithsonian - Orange and Blue lines then a 1-block walk or use the DC Circulator.

Parking - Limited metered street parking is available in the area, or use the paid parking lot at 12th and C Streets, SW (east of the museum. The rate is usually around $4.00 per hour.

Photography - Photography is not allowed in any of the museum’s exhibits.

Images - Wikimedia - Arbeit macht frei, Buchenwald Crematoria, Exterior - personal collection - © 2008 - Jon Rochetti, Museum interior Arbeit Macht Frei - U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, poster - artist Frantz Würbel
__________________________________________________

1 Comment