Yad Vashem Museum

Today we visited the famous Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem.  Before we went into the actual museum, we got headsets and like a walkie- talkie thing which was just for listening so that we would be able to hear our tour guide talk about the exhibits without yelling over the other people that were there.  It was surprisingly very crowded for a random Monday morning, but it was a big museum so we weren't particularly disturbed by any other group.  The first thing our group went to was the main museum.  The museum was actually built into the side of a mountain, so it had this triangular shape which had a really interesting feel to it on the inside.
The museum was set up chronologically, so first we saw exhibits about Germany in the early 1930's and Nazi propaganda.  Then we come come to the late 1930's and our tour guide talked about Jews in the ghettos.  We saw remnants of things that people left behind or things that were taken from them, from very expensive things like silver to seemingly meaningless things like dolls.  Then we saw exhibits about the actual war and then we saw a little bit about what happened right after.
Once we went through the main museum, we stopped off at the learning center before lunch.  Every couple of people shared a computer and you were able to click on controversial questions and hear different types of people answering them.  Some interesting questions were, could the Holocaust have happened without Hitler, or how will the memory of the Holocaust survive after all the survivors are gone?  We ate lunch that we packed before we left and then we had some free time to look around in the book store.
After lunch we heard the amazing story of a Holocaust survivor who was Anne Frank's best friend.  She talked about living with Anne Frank in Amsterdam and she spoke about her time with her in the concentration camp.  After we heard her story, we went into a classroom to speak about leaders and how they had to deal with ethical problems.  Some issues that came up were giving people over to the Nazis and whether or not they should create an uprising.  We had a short break and then we went outside to the forest of non-jewish heroes who saved kids from dying in the Holocaust.  Our last stop was the children's room.  This is a room full of mirrors on all sorts of angles with five candles in the middle causing the light to be reflected all over the room.  Music is played in the background while the names, ages, and countries of children who died are read aloud.
Our trip to Yad Vashem was very emotionally draining yet very touching and informative.  I recommend it to anyone looking for things to do in Jerusalem.  Shalom V'lehitraot!