Holocaust Museum

          This was my first time ever going to a Holocaust Museum. I thought I knew what to expect, I was not prepared for what I was about to experience. I was very moved by the greeting of the volunteer as we first walked in. Walking through those doors a very reverent feeling comes over you.

 

          The peer pressure from Hitler and the soldiers, that had already joined him, must have been overwhelming. I feel the older boys joined the army because they thought how great it would be to “stand up for our country”. As time passed the younger boys joined from peer pressure of the older soldiers and for the fear of what might happen if they did not. The pressure to fit in and the need to belong to a group played a big role in Hitler’s army. We see this happening still today.  Senior boys join the military because their friends are or because a relative is in the military. Churches are larger today more so than ever before because people long to be a part of a group or to fit in with their friends.

 

 

Hitler took a firm stance on punishing those that aided in the Jews escaping from Germany.   I feel at first most people didn’t really understand what was happening. When you listened to some of the people tell their story, they say the same thing, “We didn’t realize what was happening.” Once people started understanding what Hitler was doing, they started reacting with a sense of right and wrong.  Knowing they would be murdered, people continued to help the Jew’s escape the massacre that they were all living through.  

 

Hitler’s brain washing of these young soldiers happened slowly so by the time the soldiers were loading people on the trains, there was no sense of right or wrong.  The soldiers were doing what they were told to do.  The longer this went on the easier it became for the soldiers to murder any one that was in their way.  Hitler made the Holocaust out to be a great cleanse of Germany and that his soldiers were doing what was right by their country. Over time soldiers became conditioned to believe they were doing what was right. Soldiers did as they were told and did not question. People became tolerant of actions that they might not agree with in the beginning.  When an authority figure, like Hitler, is standing next to you dictating orders for you to carry out, you will to the full extent.  However, if that authority figure leaves one might not carry it out to the full extent because of feelings of wrong doing that come over you.  Most everyone is raised to obey authority and not question it. This is one reason why people following an “authority figure” do what that person asks of them. Once you start believing what you are doing is right, you don’t question yourself any more.

 

 

           Hitler had taken up all the radios so that Germany was cut off from the outside world.  The only thing they could listen to was the German stations so that they would remain unaware of what was going on in other places.  Controlling what they could listen to was yet another way Hitler had control over the people and their minds.

          I did find some pictures very interesting in the museum.  I saw a picture of Sigmund Freud. Freud was at the Tempelhof Airport in Berlin in 1938 where he flew to Austria.  I didn’t realize that Freud was a Jew.  One has to stop and think what would psychology be like if he would have been murdered? I also saw a picture of Albert Einstein with children and a letter to Eugene Kramon dated 1939 thanking him for all his help.  I think sometimes we forget how old Albert Einstein was.  I didn’t realize that he had any part of this.  We always talk about Albert Einstein but I don’t ever remember hearing of this letter of thanks. One fact that I found interesting was that all of Denmark’s Jews were rescued within three weeks by boat and taken to Sweden. It is amazing just how much there is to really learn.

 

 

 

This is one of the ships that was used to smuggle Jews to Sweden.  About 7 at a time were kept below in the very small quarters.

 

 

Walking through the museum as a mother I have a hard time understanding how people could shoot down a mother holding her baby close to her body. Understanding and learning more about psychology, I see how this can happen and why it still happens today. It does not make it any easier to realize that all these people died for a man with diseases that made him crazy, yet had the ability to pressure people into thinking they were doing right by killing all these people. We all think “How could they have done those things?” I ask myself, “What would I have done if my family was threatened?” If my family was in danger and I knew my family would be spared, would I follow Hitler? Seems an easy answer, history tells us differently and so does the human mind. 

I pray that as the new generations come along that they never forget the history of this planet of ours.  I hope that parents will bring their children here so they can see the pictures, hear the words of the people who have lived through such a hell on earth and actually stand in a box car with their eyes closed and imagine how it felt to be crammed in there for 2 or 3 days. May we be a little smarter and always live with our eyes wide open!

 

This picture is of inside one of the train cars that took people to the camps. I could not even start to feel what the Jews were feeling at the time this was happening.