Monday afternoon I finally found time to visit the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center that is housed in the Jewish Federation Building below the JCRC's offices. I spent nearly an hour and a half wandering through the silent exhibit. I was lucky to have the entire museum to myself and took my time, reading each caption carefully. Although I had visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. when I was younger, I do not think I was old enough then to fully comprehend and understand the content and information the museum presented. The museum in the Federation Building, although much smaller, provided information about the Holocaust that I had yet to come across in my reading or in a history class.
The museum was set up in chronological order, making it easy for me to see the gruesome progression of the Nazis regime and the affect it had on the Jewish population. The photographs and artifacts contained in the museum presented a startling reality that cannot be contained in books or even movies that attempt to commemorate and explain this horrific era in history. I was impressed by the vast number of pieces contained in the museum that had been contributed by members of the St. Louis community. Although I am coming to understand that St. Louis has a large and contributing Jewish population, I also perceive St. Louis as one of the smaller metropolitan areas not only in the Mid-West but also in the United States. The sheer fact that a community the size of St. Louis can contribute this vast amount of information from the Holocaust is proof of the vast reaches this event has had on the world.
Because I am not Jewish, this semester at the JCRC has been a learning experience as well as an interfaith opportunity for me. I have appreciated the personal look into the Jewish community and culture of St. Louis. My visit to the Holocaust exhibit was an addition to the wealth of knowledge I have been allowed to collect this semester and was a solemn reminder of a sad era of history.
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