30 before 30: Museum of Tolerance

When I traveled to Washington D.C. in 8th grade the Holocaust Museum was not on the tour because it was not open yet. So while I have learned about the horrific time in our worlds history from books and teachers; I have always wanted a clearer understanding about that time. So Rachel and I drove into LA on Wednesday to check out the Museum of Tolerance.

We got stopped at the entrance to the parking garage and a guy checked our licenses and looked in my trunk. Which he said smelled like gasoline but I am sure was dirty saddle pads. Then in we go and up the elevator to the entrance, through a metal detector and a baggage scan like airport security. The whole building is built around a spiraling ramp that makes me want to hold out my arms and run down it like I am 5. I don't run but slowly walk down the ramp past one picture after another of people who survived the Holocaust. They are doctors, lawyers, writers, actors, mothers and fathers. There is no single visible trait that marks them out as survivors of the worst genocide in our worlds history.

We walk into the exhibit and I realize that this museum is about so much more than just the Holocaust. It walks each visitor through history pointing out the many examples of hate, violence and prejudice that cloud our world. The USA and our many bad choices when dealing with the Native Americans, Slavery and Equal Rights. No one is perfect, and no one country is infallible but I have hope that we can learn from our mistakes.

Even before entering the Holocaust exhibit I am overwhelmed by the amount of hate and violence. I have a hard time understanding how people can hold that much anger and violence in their hearts. From Darfur to North Korea, from Lybia to Somalia and from USA to Venezula there are examples of crimes against humanity. Against people like me who have a family, friends and all the possibilities that life affords. Trying to wrap my head around it all we are ushered into the Holocaust exhibit.

Each visitor gets a plastic card with a photo and a name of someone who was alive during the Holocaust. Mine is a seven year old girl who was born in Yugoslavia. We start our journey at the end of WWI. Berlin arises before us as a bustling metropolotian area, and it strikes me how similar Berlin of then and Los Angeles if now are. The guides walk us through the beginning of Hitler's ire and how his ideas rose in popularity. His legitimate bid for political power that began the end of peace and prosperity for all. I watched horrified as German tanks and troops began rolling over all of western Europe. Then to my dismay I was informed that even those who escaped a Europe that meant certain death had no where to go. No country would take these refugees in and whole ships were turned away from US harbors and sent back to die.

This made me think about the current immigration issues facing the US right now. If we knew that sending all illegal immigrants home would mean death, would we still send them back? I fear many people would. I hope for more compassion, forgiveness and support for all human beings.

We walked through gates of a death camp, into a hallway marked for Able-Bodied and into a dark, cement room. There we watched video of people being herded onto trains, being made to strip and then shot while standing in mass graves, starving to death and being hanged. Photos of abuse, happy children saluting Hitler and then children being thrown out a window to their death. I feel ill as we exit the cement bunker and I feel like I am walking from death to life.

The next section is a collection of artifacts produced by Jewish men, women and children. Some where made in the ghettos where millions were packed in less than 2 square miles. Some were made in the death camps, others by those who managed to stay out of sight for most of the Holocaust. Paintings and poems, toys and trinkets plus a menorah and several other religious objects decorated the walls. It is amazing what the human spirit can endure, these people who were faced with death and loss almost everyday managed to create beautiful things. They cared for one another and did their best to make sure those who could not care for themselves were cared for. Soup kitchens and medical clinics sprung up in the ghettos and helped to create a new community. Despite being faced with continual harassment by authorities and the constant threat of death they built something together.

I took 2 major lessons from this exhibit. The most blatant is that we as a world community should NEVER allow something like this to happen again. It has no benefit.

Secondly I am amazed at the resilience of the human spirit. Even faced with the worst scenario we are capable of great caring and compassion. I hope that we can show those same traits before they are necessary for survival.

I think Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Dr. King would all appreciate what I walked away with.

If I can be one more voice for peace, tolerance and understanding maybe someday there will be enough of us to drown out the hate.