Yom HaShoah

St. Petersburg, Florida
April 11, 2010

I don't know why, but I felt compelled to visit the Florida Holocaust Museum while I was in the Tampa Bay area. I previously visited several times the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Beverly Hills, always captivated by the lectures from survivors of the Holocaust. So on that Sunday morning I drove south from my hotel in Largo to the museum in St. Petersburg. As I approached the cashier and took out my wallet, she told me that admission to the museum today was free because it was Yom HaShoah, the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust.

I anticipated once again to be torn between seeing the worst and best of humanity, as illustrated by this wicked episode of our past. This would place my life in perspective - a fortunate life, regardless of any problems and challenges I have faced, which are miniscule in comparison.

Courtesy of Florida Holocaust Museum

The most stirring exhibit of the museum was Railroad Boxcar #113 069-5. It is one of the remaining boxcars used by the Nazis to transport Jews and other prisoners to concentration camps and death camps like Auschwitz. The boxcar sits on original rail tracks from the Treblinka death camp.  I sat by the boxcar for almost a half hour, touching and gazing at it. I tried to comprehend the fear, panic, and death that gripped its tenants and the tragedies awaiting those that lived once they departed the boxcar. I tried to understand what would compel a person, a group of people, a community, a nation to inflict such hatred, pain, and death on other human beings. I could not come to such understanding.


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Florida Holocaust Museum