lemme just talk a quick second about my visit to the holocaust museum today, it was beautiful and really sad. i’m don’t cry very easily when it comes to history, as unsettling as that is, but this exhibit really pulled on my heart strings. as you enter the gallery, you’re required to take a “passport” of a european jew living during world war two. my woman, coincidentally had the same first and last name (okay i’m shwartzburg fuck with me) as my grandmother, who was also a jew (HOW FUCKING WEIRD IS THAT) and looked relatively similar but lived in different locations and this was not my grandmother. each page on the passport is a different period of time (1933, 1937 etc) and as you walk through, you follow the timeline of the occupation and how it coincides with your person, so you know how it affected them. it’s an extremely powerful way of personalising the experience. unfortunately, my woman’s fate was unknown, but most likely she was condemned to death. my mother’s though survived and had children afterwords.
the architecture of the museum its self is beautiful. i haven’t done any research about it, but what struck me was how well designed it was. it fit the mood perfectly, and the purpose of the museum was evident in the building itself. reflection, and reflective surfaces are everywhere.
i was a little shaken through out the entire thing, but what really got to me was the piles of shoes. before the jews were about to be gassed, they were told that they were going to be “deloused” (purification, aka gassed to death) and were ordered to strip naked. all of their clothing and things were then taken away. i just started crying as soon as i entered the room. not only is it visually compelling, but you can smell it too. there are just so many fucking shoes, all charred and disgusting, thrown away. it was really symbolic and terrifying. it was over whelming, and really worth the visit, no matter how sad it was.
what also bothered me was how there was limited information about america’s involvement in the war. we stepped in MUCH too late, and quite frankly, i don’t think it’s mentioned much because it’s an embarrassment at this point. it was well curated though, and i can understand why it wouldn’t be mentioned, shitting hardcore on america wouldn’t look all that great. another weird moment was when a security guard yelled at a few of these twelve year olds and their mums for taking photos of the exhibit. she walked over and made them delete all of the photos they took. i suppose it could be a security risk or whatever, but how are people supposed to remember everything? people like me write who write everything down (the majority of my time was spent scribbling in my notebook important facts) but i think that visually it’s very crucial to record and document. i found that form of censorship unsettling, isn’t that what this exhibit is fighting? (insert bitchy liberal here) thankfully, my mother being a crafty russian (bless her soul) was able to snap a few photos.
i really really enjoyed the visit, they’ve got this FANTASTIC non permanent gallery about nazi propaganda, which is a lighter exhibit, and as a graphic designer, this fascinated me. that was my favorite part of the visit, it’s just so crazy how they got away with it all. one poster in particular stood out to me because it mentioned my small hometown in ukraine, i’ll post a photo tomorrow.
all in all, i really enjoyed the museum. i think it’s really important and interesting to go if you have the oppertunity.
