Assignment 7: Imperial War Museum

Mallory and I visited the Imperial War Museum planning to spend probably an hour to go throughout the whole thing - we ended up being there for three.  Two of those three were spent in the Holocaust exhibit, and the rest was spent wandering around the rest of the museum.

As soon as we walked in, there is a huge display with a bunch of faces of military personnel against a white background.  Next to their pictures were various items, ranging from letters home to pieces of body protection with bullet holes through them.  I read further and realized the soldiers were those who had fought in the Afghanistan War.  This hit extremely close to home considering my brother is currently deployed there with the US Marines.  I'm always wary about looking into information regarding the war, because I'd rather know less than more about what's going on unless it's absolutely necessary.  We traveled up to the first floor and looked at the pictures close-up.  To see individual soldiers photographed so plainly made the war seem more personal, even though I'm already semi-involved in it.  It's so intriguing to see their faces without sunglasses, helmets, or some type of protective covering in the way.  That also makes it easier to relate - they're not photographed as a mass of people carrying huge weapons; it gives them a story.  Needless to say, that display was kind of tough to see and there were a few times I got choked up reading about stories that happened to different people.

Then began our trek through the Holocaust Exhibit.  I walked into it thinking that it was only one floor, then found out about 1/3 of the way through that it continued on downstairs.  I felt like we were involved in the Holocaust itself - it was chilling to say the least.  We saw everything from the reason the movement was started, to how they distinguished the Aryan race, to their actual extermination methods.  I felt myself getting a headache looking at everything because of how hard I was focusing.  My mind couldn't even wrap around the things that I was seeing.  There was a part towards the end that had a display of just shoes of people who had been gassed or burned to death in concentration camps.  They told about how they appointed certain Jews to sift through the crematoriums following burning and find anything that could be considered of value - shoes, hidden jewelry, and gold teeth were among the most common.  Nazis literally took the gold from people's teeth and deposited it directly into the German Bank.

One of the things I found the most odd was looking at the entire war from the perspective of the UK.  All we hear about in school at home is how we were helping the fight, but it amazes me how directly involved the UK and London itself were bombed and destroyed.  It still fascinates me how you can look at the landscape along the Thames and see so many modern and ancient buildings juxtaposed as a result of rebuilding after the war.  Overall, the day gave me a better understanding of London's firsthand experience in the war and how it personally affected people here.