The Holocaust

Over six million Jews were killed in the concentration camps by the Nazis. Today I filed past what will hopefully keep that painful memory alive so that future generations will not let such atrocities happen ever again. I had prepared for the museum for a few days before hand by re-reading Night by Elie Wiesel and starting Band of Brothers again. I wished to enter the museum in a reverent state. Unfortunately we, the class, had a schedule to keep, so the first half of the museum was simply trying to keep up. Then came the middle, "The Final Solution". As I said, I had prepared to see gruesome and horrific images, but it was so much worse. In this particular section there was first a freight car from one of the trains used to transport Jews. The car was in the middle of the room with a path leading through it. Right before I entered it I remembered from my book, that one hundred men, women, and children were literally stuffed in there. The air changed with my first step to a musty decaying smell as if death had seeped into the wood and was now pulling at people walking through it. Usually not a claustrophobic person, I ran out. I could feel death swarming me, filling my lungs, and causing me to choke. Next came a 3-D model of a typical procession into the "showers". This procession happening several times a day. 1,000 people, mainly women and children, were locked into the showers, stark naked, and already so squished that breathing was hard. The model showed a riot, a stand still stampede, and a fight, in vain, for air. Some were trampled or suffocated before the gas was even dropped. Twenty minutes later 1,000 bodies were removed, their hair shaven, their teeth taken, and the remains stuck in the crematories, with the ashes billowing out collecting on the shoulders of the living, their families. Then I walked into a barn looking building with bunkbeds in the corners. In the center were TVs playing footage of experimentations conducted by the Nazis on the Jews. All I remember were images of bodies that will never leave me, and a feeling of nausea that caused me to run out in search of air. The air was so tight and warm in there. As I came out I looked at my classmates who were sitting down, Talking! Where is the reverence and respect? I went down the hall past them, the images still seeping in. I wanted to cry, then I saw the shoes. I nearly did. That was about the end of the museum, after that we looked around the gift shop, Already they were bored! I later asked if any of them felt nauseated or teary eyed at the museum. "No, not really. It wasn't as intense as I thought it would be. Sure it was sad, but I was expecting a lot worse." Then they asked me why I was so intent on becoming depressed. Five seconds later, conversation had changed and the girls were fighting over how fat they were, and what names sound the fattest.
Today wasn't all sad, I babysat Gracie tonight and we made chocolate cookies, which if I do say so myself are very good! Now Mom and UB are at book group and I'm holding down the fort. No homework tonight, so I guess I'll read or watch a movie.