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| Photo Dr. Kip Strasma |
On the morning of the trip I had no real conceived idea on what to expect. To be honest I had just come of working a 16-hour shift and the only thing I desired was to just lay down in a seat and try to get a few hours of sleep before we got there. I must confess that most of my knowledge of the Holocaust is from watching movies and documentaries that I have seen over the years. Some I know were fictional but some were based off of known facts.
When we first arrived at the museum I was very surprised at how quiet and somber it was on the outside. While you could not tell what was really in the building, you just had the feeling that it was a place of great respect. One of the first surprising thing was the amount of security that this place had in the lobby. This brings me to my first of three ideas that came to me on this trip.
Even though the atrocities that occurred during the rise and fall of Hitler initiating his so called "Final Solution" for the Jewish people are not happening in current time, the prejudiced and hatred towards them are still alive and thriving today. I cannot comprehend the feeling that people must have had knowing that others want to wipe them out from the face of the earth. Even now, antisemitic feelings can be still be witnessed in the world.
The second point that I took away from the visit was how quickly and how easily the idea of genocide was accepted. This was evident as I was walking through the first part of the displays and listening to the narrators. It was only the first year of Hitler’s being power and he was already designing the grand plan of eliminating the Jewish people. It started out with public announcements on how the Jews were stealing the money and keeping the German people in poverty. Then when public opinion was being swayed, it was much easier to pass laws and take away the properties and rights of the Jewish people. Then only after one year Hitler was allowed to round them up, put them into Ghettos, and send them to work camps, where they were worked and murdered. I have a hard time comprehending that such things were allowed to happen. One would think that surely someone would put a stop to it; however, as we have seen in modern times, it only takes a charismatic person and a negative agenda to start going down a path like this again. Consider Africa, Bosnia, or China...
The third thing that I took away from the field trip was the awareness of the amount of suffering these people where put through. When we had our presentation by Mrs. Magda Brown I had no way of feeling the amount of pain and suffering that she suffered. Not only the physical pain of being starved, beaten, and thirsted, but the mental cruelty that she endured. I cannot fathom the heartache of losing your parents, brother, and all of your family. And then living one day to the next, not knowing if you are going to live or be put to death. Having your perceived life taken from you and being forced to lose your dignity and personhood... To become just a number... no longer being perceived as a human being...
I can only hope that society today can learn from her. She encourages us to not ever let anyone take away our freedoms and self-worth. We need to keep in mind that it really only took one year for Hitler's plan to be devised, enacted, and implemented with little or no resistance from the population. Let us learn from past mistakes and uphold our freedom and liberties at all cost.
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