Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend The Holocaust Memorial Museum. History books cannot replace the images and items left behind from this tragedy. With that said, it is important that mankind never forgets the inhumane acts committed during this era. Everyone should visit this museum so that we may all truly understand what took place and continue our commitment to preventing future mass genocides and discrimination of any race. People’s commitment stands strong with the mantra “never again.”

Experiencing this museum was the first time I witnessed the Holocaust from a personal level. At the beginning of your walkthrough of the museum, you are given a small four page pamphlet. In it, I saw the face of a real holocaust victim. Below their image was their name, date of birth, country of origin and a short description of their life. The following pages continued on to describe this victim’s life before and after their time in the Holocaust. Everyone is issued one of these pamphlets before going through the museum, reminders that they suffered the scrounges of war and genocide, that they suffered losses to the point where two out of every three European Jews were killed by 1945. Behind all the historical facts and dates, there were real victims of this massacre.

The Holocaust was the Nazi regime’s systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia. Though we all know of Hitler’s “final solution” to spill all Jewish blood in Europe, Jews were not killed immediately after Adolf Hitler seized power over Germany. Originally, Hitler and the Nazi party felt that Germans were “racially superior” and considered the Jews to be one of many inferior races. They were specifically targeted as Hitler himself saw them as the most inferior of all races. These were all concepts outlined in the autobiography Mein Kampf where Hitler revealed his moral ideals which later were translated into discriminate laws target Jews.

It was after nearly 400 laws had been passed to discriminate and degrade Jewish people that Hitler announced his “final solution” to exterminate the Jewish people.

It is important for people to visit this museum to understand the history behind what the Holocaust was. Understanding is important to preventing future tragedies.

Understanding our history gives us all the power to control our future. It is our duty to bear in mind the lives lost and the discriminate targeting of the Jewish people and to pledge that we shall never let this happen again. Anyone and everyone should visit the Holocaust memorial museum. It may be difficult to understand and take in some of the images you see, but it is important to accept its gravity and learn from its message so that we do not repeat this dark age in human history.