Rachel Curtis: Never Hate

Today I visited the Holocaust Museum in Skokie Illinois with my Suffering and Forgiveness class.  It was the most humbling experience that I have ever had while visiting a museum.  I know a little bit about the Holocaust from previous history classes that I have taken.  Nothing that I have learned previously can compare to what I experienced at this museum.  The exhibits were set up in order from before the Holocaust and ending after WWII.  On display throughout the exhibits were first hand experiences from survivors of the Holocaust, pictures, Nazi propaganda, letters, etc.  The impact of seeing almost firsthand the suffering that innocent people had to endure is hard to put into words.

Out of everything that I saw and read in the museum, there was one particular picture that impacted me the most.  Even though it was horrific to look at, I could barely peel my eyes away from it.  It was a picture  of a woman holding her young child tightly in her arms while an SS soldier took aim at her head with a rifle.  This picture held me in its grips for at least ten minutes.  For some reason I had a hard time looking away.  It made me nauseous, irate and sad all at once.  I have never had a picture impact me like that before.  I think that one of the reasons it did so is because it made me think about how easily it could have been me in that picture.  I imagined myself in her place knowing that it would be the last time that I ever held my child and there was nothing that I could do about it.

In the last hour that we were at the museum, we were fortunate enough to be able to speak with a Holocaust survivor.  Her name is Magda Brown.  Her firsthand accounts of the Holocaust were mesmerizing to listen to.  I could never imagine going through what she went through and come out of it to be such an inspirational, optimistic woman.  She left me speechless.  Her lecture on how we should not hate will forever resonate with me.  My visit to the Holocaust Museum will never be forgotten and I look forward to returning there with my husband soon.