2nd Semester Reflection

This semester, I had the honor to set foot in a place that held evidence and memories of a time
and event that seemed most real in the gruesome stories told to me in my early childhood until
now. I had the privilege of going to the Museum of Tolerance with my AP European History
class. The Museum held information stretching from the the cause and flow of the holocaust and
the origins of Adolf Hitler to the end of the second World War and all acts of intolerance since.
All of this including detailed information of the the brutal slaughter of jews by the
Einsatzgruppen, or German mobile machine gun squad, and the death camps such as Auschwitz
birkenau. We were given a tour through the entire museum and saw artifacts from the time of
the Holocaust such as Nazi uniforms, weapons, and tools used to torture jews such as something
used to pull out teeth with gold fillings for the war effort in what I can imagine to be the most
painful way possible.
This trip to the Museum of Tolerance helped me to grow in my ability to weigh perspectives. I
always believed that I had very extensive knowledge of the holocaust and the things that
happened because my mother was jewish and began to tell me of the horrors of the time and
showed me pictures and news headings from the holocaust at a very young age. All of the
pictures I saw and all of the articles I read could have never made me understand what happened
during the holocaust in the way that the people who spoke at the museum of tolerance
understood it. I had the honor of hearing recollections of the holocaust from actual holocaust
survivors, the most breathtaking being from a woman, I believe her name was Gloria, who
happened to be giving a tour to another group and allowed us to sit in as she told her story. We
were blessed with the greatest of luck. After hearing Glorias story I knew how little I truly
understood about the holocaust. Of course, how could I possibly have as a good of an
understanding as her? Glorias perspective was extremely different from mine. I had only heard
stories and seen images of an event that took place 60 years before my time when Gloria had
experience it first had. She lived the nightmare that people have when they learn how disgusting
and cruel humanity can be. Gloria gave me a perspective on the holocaust that I could have never
acquired on my own and for that I am forever grateful especially since I know that it must have
been really difficult for her to call upon such painful memories. The experience that I had at the
Museum of Tolerance was one that may never be outmatched and one that I will certainly never
forget. That trip was easily the highlight of my year no questions asked. I always found it odd
how the darkest and cruelest actions in human history attain our interest in bulk, almost as if we
were drawn to the smell of blood of ages past.