Museum Visit by Shenayh Rivera

Shenayh Rivera-Melendez
Teaching Diverse Populations
Professor A. Navarro
Museum Visit Paper
Holocaust Museum
So much depends upon one’s humanity. The purpose and reason of life often is derived from the logic of our humanity, without it how can one feel complete? When something so precious as this is taken away from a person, then that person is left with nothing but the need to survive. Survival is the most basic innate principle one can have; being reduced to such a state is something which was presented in this Holocaust museum. The stories alone from those who have survived can break anyone’s spirit. Knowledge is something which we humans should utilize from the history of this; a history which was not too long ago. What is there to learn from such a catastrophic event? Humans are evil? No, I believe the lesson here is to learn compassion; acceptance of diverse background is a good habit everyone should practice (should being the operative word), and that whenever a person is broken down to their very essence of being, they can be broken down no further because the need to survive will always... survive.
Walking into the Holocaust museum, it was not as I expected a museum to be. It was quite small, but I soon learned that small things do not detract from the plethora of information gathered for such a small space. The place was quite informative, (although empty, the people were still kind enough to show us some welcome), as it included a televised area of survival witnesses on the wall, every part of the enclosed space was covered with stories of people and how they survive or what got them through their days, pictures of the people detrimental health and living conditions.
A memorable yet sad thing I took away with me was a small glass plated area with artifacts in it, one of which was a spoon and next to it, an explanation for the spoon. This touch my heart, the spoon was someone’s in the holocaust and it was of significance for this very reason: it was the last thing they had which made them feel human. The spoon symbolized humanity to them and it was the one thing which kept them from feeling like animals (because animals eat with their faces) and gave them a feeling of still being human. Despite the treatment and everything else lost, they could not bear to lose the spoon, their last strand of humanity. This just goes to show the importance of one’s humanity. If something as simple as a spoon could help someone get through a day.