Jewish Museum and Memorial

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So we went to the Jewish Museum and Memorial today and i had my first real reaction to something we have seen. Here is my blog for the museum:

Visiting the Jewish Museum and Memorial is definitely something that I will never forget. I learned a lot and felt an uncanny closeness with the victims of the Holocaust. Walking in, I expected the experience to be a lot like the experience I had in Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum but it was nothing close. When I look back on the Holocaust Museum I remember the videos and photographs but when I look back on the Jewish Museum and Memorial I will remember the feelings and connections I felt. Learning about the architecture of the building made me appreciate the museum and memorial even more. When we first saw the outside of the metal building next to the original museum, I thought that it took away from the significance of the building next to it but I have realized that it added so much more. The fact that Daniel Libeskind took the time to map out all of the important places to the Jews in Berlin and incorporate it into the architecture adds so much to the history of it. I also really appreciate the fact that he left voids down the middle in remembrance of those lost. I feel like in most museums the victims are just pictures on a wall rather than part of the experience. Walking into the start of the path, I was brought to thinking what it would have been like to be on a train and walking off the platform to my fate: either left or right, light or dark, life or death. Going to the left and looking at the Garden of Exile, I had a mix of emotions. I felt a sigh of relief because I knew that there was hope but all of the barriers reminded me that it was a long process for the victims to freedom and that it often left them sad and alone. I also enjoyed the olive trees on top of the pillars and what they represent. I think it is really symbolic that they have the necessities for like that they cannot grow outside of the box and flourish, just like the victims; they will always be confined by the holocaust. Walking down the Axis of the Holocaust towards the Holocaust Tower, I could feel the darkness coming and I had a gut feeling we were headed for something that was going to make us very uncomfortable. The moment the door shut and we were enclosed in the near darkness of the tower, I couldn’t help but feel a rush of emotions that I can only imagine were similar to what the victims must have felt, especially in the travel cars. I felt suffocated, cold, and alone, even though everyone was in there with me. The beam of light in the top corner and the sounds from outside helped remind me that I was okay and that the world was still going on outside of me and that I would soon return to it. While it was helpful for me, I can only imagine how hard it was for all of the victims, knowing that the world was still going on around you but that you could not be a part of it. It was an eerie feeling relating to the victims like that. The part of the museum that made the victims so real to me was the Memory Void. Walking around the corner, I was unsure of what to expect and when I saw an empty room with metal circles on the ground, I could not figure out what it was. Looking closer, I realized that they were faces. It is a surreal experience seeing 10,000 faces scattered on the floor. Upon the people starting to walk across the floor and the circles starting to clang together, sounds filled the room that will stay with me forever. It is a very hard sound to describe. It was more than just metal banging together; it was almost like screams. Once I finally reached the area to enter, I got a better look at the faces and saw that most of them were crying. The little ones struck my heart the most. Walking across faces, even if they are just symbolic metal, makes you really evaluate yourself and it got my mind thinking about everything all of the victims must have experienced. I know that it is an image that will stay with me until I die. Walking around the rest of the museum, I learned a lot about the Jewish culture, especially in Germany. I found it interesting that throughout history, the Jews have been persecuted and have been thought of as less that everyone else. It makes it more fathomable that the people of Germany did not react more when everyone started to be persecuted. It was interesting to see that history really does repeat itself, which is why it is so important to study this tragedy so that nothing like this happens again.

The rest of the day I went with a group that toured churches and saw a lot of cool things.
Dinner was our first group dinner which was interesting. It was three hours, three courses, and a traditional european meal. It was a salad, a meat rolled up around pickles(weird but good) with potatoes and carrots, and some kind of doghnut with a beery filling and icecream. It was better had it been earlier in the day(not starting at 7) but it was still good.

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