Today, we focused a lot on an interactive workshop and a museum. This workshop took place in the “Topography of Terror” documentation center. This experience was one of the more special ones as it was extremely interactive; we were split into groups of 5 and each one of us was assigned to learn and investigate certain events of the Second World War. I was told to investigate the mass murders of Jews on the Eastern Front. A man by the name of Karl Jager was the commandant of the Einsatzkommando 3. From what Brandon and I read, he led a very heartless and cruel mass-murder of the Jewish populations in the Lithuania region. He used tactics such as dehumanization to make himself feel better about the murders, excuses such as “I was only following orders,” and other things such as telling his soldiers to think about the aerial bombings, their wives, and children when they were about to shoot the “Jewish enemy.” Soon enough, results of these disgusting methods and strategies started showing up, with about one hundred thirty-seven thousand Jewish people of the Soviet Union being killed in the course of the documents’ time which was the months of July to November of 1941. Of course, as one might assume, this wasn’t simply following orders anymore. He, like many others, bought into the idea of the Communist Jew enemy that lay in the Soviet Union. Being able to deep dive into such a horrific, and chilling set of nine documents gave me a sense of the true scale of the mass murder that happened in Eastern Europe.
After that, we ate lunch, which was delicious doner kebab, and then we headed to the Jewish Museum. This museum was incredibly designed, down to the last degree. I say that because the floors were on an incline for the most part. The most memorable part of the museum was the art installation Shalekhet. This installation was one that consisted of thousands of heavy, metal faces that were scattered around the floor in remembrance of all the victims of the Holocaust. Any time you took a step, a loud almost shrieking sound erupted from the metal faces clashing against each other, and at the end of the exhibition, there was no door, so we walked the entire way back enduring what felt like an endless wave of cries from the floor. Immersive experiences like these are what cement the memories in my brain, never to forget.
