A garden that should be seen as a place of beauty with bright green leaves overheard letting in slim rays of sun is immediately made uneasy to the human senses by tall pillars of random lengths and cobblestone floors that sink and rise beneath your feet, seemingly changing itself as you walk on it. You leave the garden of confusion feeling as if you have no concept of balance remaining in your feet. However, while your senses have been disoriented, the overall experience does not cease. You continue and see a door at the end of a hallway with the walls narrowing as you approach it. The closer you get to the door, the more crushed your body feels. You walk through the door not knowing what to expect and you find perhaps salvation: a wide-open room with walls so tall that the tops blend in with the roof as you crane your neck towards the sky. Yet, this open space does not provide relief from the narrowing hallway but instead only invokes fear due to the silence broken only by footsteps on cold concrete. Some light shines through an open corner, yet it provides no warmth and no hope. It is a false beacon, prompting the people inside to want nothing more than to leave this room of tension. This haunting experience is capped by an exhibition that could drive anyone mad by this point. You continue through turn after turn to then walk upon metal plates and hear each one clank against the ones surrounding it. You see faces within each plate and hear each clang as a unique scream, matching the face you step upon. Through this entire experience within the museum, you have experienced disorientation, fear, and guilt and every negative emotion outside and in between. Yet, you have only been inside one museum and participated in a tour that lasted not more than two hours.
This is what marks the Jewish Museum as an experience unlike any other and as a highlight of my time here in Germany. It is not a historical tour nor is it a tour that preaches how you should feel. While both of these are perhaps necessary to fully understand any situation, especially one like the Holocaust, there is another level in going through an exhibition meant to provoke emotion within the very country that was responsible for the deaths of millions of the people to whom the museum is dedicated. This cannot be recreated in America. This cannot be recreated in a history textbook. This cannot be recreated in a movie. This an experience that drives the deepest thoughts and emotions any human can have in response to each stimulus offered. This response will certainly differ from person to person, as you have only heard my interpretation. One fact is undeniable: this is an ordeal many people may not want to have because it is not “fun,” but it is one I am incredibly grateful I had the opportunity to experience.
