Holocaust Museum

Fourth Floor

The Nazi Assult

1. The first exhibit that I experienced was a film on Hitlers' rise to power. It showed how he played on the fears of the people by using propaganda to promote himself to becoming Chancellor of Germany. Ever though he lost the election, Hindenburg on January 30, 1933 appointed Hitler Chancellor.

2. The next thing that caught my interest was a film on anti-Semitism. This film showed the roots for people's natural fear of the Jews from the times of Christianity through the middle ages and up to WWII.

3. The more traditional type of exhibit they had was about how the Germans tried to separate Aryans from what they considered inferior races that did not deserve to exist. They tried to do this very scientifically by measurements, facial features, eye color comparisons, and other features.

4. In a different part of the exhibit, was the listing of all of the Jewish towns that were totally or partially whipped out because of the Holocaust. The names of the towns were engraved on the glass windows of a corridor there were so many of them that they filled up the entire wall.

Personal Response

1. This movie was very informative, for example before this movie I thought that Hitler was voted into power, but really he was appointed by Hindenburg. I thought that it was kind of scary that a government system could fall apart that easily.

2. I was amazed at how long of a history anti-Semitism had. It went all the way back to the beginning of Christianity. I also learned that one of Martin Lutherans, of the Lutheran Church, goals was to convert Jews to Christianity.

3. I was astonished of how in depth the Germans went in measuring the body parts, such as the different parts of the head, the position of the nose, and so on.

4. I just stood there for a little bit, just looking at the names of the towns, and I saw people pointing out different towns of there ancestors, but I could not relate to it at all.

Third Floor

"Final Solution"

1. The actual start of the German plan for the Final Solution (1940-1945), was to isolate the Jews into Ghettos, and then to send them off to Concentration camps to be used for slave labor, or gassed.

2. The archway to Auschwitz was incorporated into the museum by having it as the archway to the part of the floor that describes the things that went on inside concentration camps. The Translation of the archway is "work will set you free" which is of course false.

3. The thing that I though was the most interesting , must have been the boxcar. The Germans used these to transport Jews from the Ghettos directly to the concentration camps.

4. The doctors at the concentration camps would perform grotesque operations, and dissections on the bodies of Jews. And I remember one Jew, who had a severely disfigured skeleton, he was stabbed to death, and then the doctors proceeded to strip the flesh off of his bones, and preserve his skeleton for future study.

Personal Response

1. The exhibit really helped me to put all of the pieces that I have learned over the years together.

2. I thought that the archway would be the type of twisted thing that the Nazis would to further humiliate the Jews.

3. I stood in the boxcar for a couple of seconds, and I looked at the scuffed floor, where the paint was worn down to the wood, and I could really picture all of those people being crammed into the boxcar and sent to their deaths.

4. As I watched the movie, I could not grasp that the things that I was seeing were real, especially the body parts just laying around. It made me feel sick to my stomach that stuff like that happened.

Second Floor

The Last Chapter

1. On this floor there was a wall that was for the people who went out of there way to save Jewish people from the Nazis. They were organized by from what country they came from, and I remember reading about one professor who saved close to 1,000 people from the Holocaust.

2. Denmark was the only country that tried to fully protect its Jewish community from the Nazis, and in the museum they had a boat that was used to take Jews from Denmark to Sweden where they would be safe.

3. The Hall of Remembrance with its eternal flame, is for the Victims of the Holocaust. There are candles that can be lit in their memory.

4. The Wexner Learning Center is an interactive learning Center. The watched a film about how the United States was hesitant to join the Olympics in Berlin. And so they decided to go and they were determined to win.

Personal Response

1. I guess the quote that one person can make a difference is really true. These people are real life heroes. They risked there life to save a group of lives. I really respect that kind of bravery.

2. I thought that it was kind of weird that the only country to protect there Jews was Denmark. I felt like the Jews back then were never fully appreciated, because if they were then all of the countries would try to protect there Jewish community from the Nazis.

3. This place was a very solemn sacred place to me. It gave me a chance to think back on the things that I saw that day.

4. I thought that this was very neat. I watched the film on the Berlin Olympics, and it was very informative, and not boring.

First Floor

Hall of Witness/ Daniel's Story

1. The architecture of the building is brilliant. It joins together the modernism of today with the simplicity of the early 1900's with the horror and terror of the Holocaust.

2. Unlike other displays in this museum, this one is arranged and presented in such a way that a child can relate to it. Signs and explanations are artfully arranged on desks and windows and in drawers and closets. This is an interactive, hands-on exhibit.

3. The Quote "You are my witnesses" from Isaiah 43:10 is reminding people who visit the museum that the Holocaust really did happen, and that such an event should never ever happen again.

4. The middles of the museum from the first floor up is designed to look like a ghetto, and it gives sort of an eerie feeling to the place, that you are in the place of the Jews during the Holocaust in the ghettos, before the concentration camps.

Personal Response

1. It is hard not to notice the architecture, because it was such a part of the museum. It had a lot of emotion in it, like it self endured the holocaust.

2. I thought that this was really nest, all of the hands on stuff, and the little bits of the diary everywhere. It was a lot different to see the holocaust through the eyes of a child.

3. This is a well known quote, and I thought about it a little bit, and I started to think about all of the bystanders of the Holocaust, not, Jewish, not Aryan, just there. They too must have been scared by it.

4. While I was standing there I felt like I was actually inside of a ghetto. It was a sort of eerie feeling that I got.