"Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes saw, and lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life and you shall make them known to your children and your children's children." Deuteronomy 4:9
Saturday I spent a somber day visiting the Holocaust Museum in DC. I don't think I can adequately describe the feelings I experienced as I made my way through the permanent exhibit. We were surrounded by quotes, images, videos, and memorabilia of this horrific event in world history and at times it was just too overwhelming. I would look into the faces in the many photos, some of these pictures taken just minutes before these people were put to death, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. No matter how many books I read, no matter how many theories or explanations are put forth as to how Hitler was able to do this and why the German people let it go on, I will never understand why more wasn't done to stop it.
The most satisfying moment of the day for me, and I know it shouldn't have been, was the video footage taken by our US military of the local people near the Buchenwald concentration camp. When our soldiers liberated the camp, they ordered the locals to come witness what went on in the camp. I stood there watching these people, most crying, one woman running through with her hands over her face, and wished that every German would have had to go through that. I do understand that not all Germans supported Hitler and that not all were completely aware of exactly what was going on (or so they continue to say) but most Germans stood by in the early years as the Jews began to be persecuted and lose their rights as citizens. There are too many pictures of ordinary German citizens mocking the Jews and laughing at them as they were made to scrub the street or had their beards cut off. And at the end of the war, when the death marches were taking place, as these poor Jewish people were forced to march miles upon miles, the local Germans didn't offer them any food, water, shelter, nothing. The war was lost and they still wouldn't help. It's just incomprehensible!
Although it was an emotionally draining day, I am so glad that I finally got to go to the Holocaust Museum, something I have wanted to do since we moved out here, and also so grateful that I was able to spend the day with two great friends.