YOURE LYING TO ME. THOSE CAN'T BE PEOPLE.

I'm really not sure where to start with this. That was an experience that I don't think I'll ever forget. All of the names and the faces and those eyes... It's very difficult. I thought that the museum was very well done, though. The first movie was just a general introduction with names, pictures and videos from survivors. There were a lot of display cases with information and an overwhelming amount of pictures. Scattered throughout were videos from survivors and their stories. I listened to one video where soldiers from the Italian army shared their stories from trying to care for the other prisoners that were sick. More pictures, more videos, and then another movie. The movie started off pretty mellow, with prisoners or guards stating their names and occupations and what the date was. A lot of them were working in the camps as doctors, but some were prisoners. I was shocked that they were all smiling and well fed. It honestly confused me. But soon, the style of the videos changed. They were videos taken by British army men when they liberated the camp in April, 1945. These videos were so brutal that I eventually had to leave. They showed British guards moving bodies (it immensely bothers me that they call them bodies and not people) into mass graves. These were not people anymore. They had nothing. These emaciated bodies were carried -violently- into the graves and left there to rot. The next reel of film said that they had given up moving bodies one by one, so they used a bulldozer to move them. I had to leave. I don't think I could sit in there for much longer. I explored the upstairs and tried to read the Hebrew in the Jewish sections. The teachers told us we only had a half hour left so we went outside and I saw the mass graves. It was unexplainable how eerie it was on such a sunny day. I went the other way and saw the other memorials.

Before I left, I asked my mom to bring me a rock from home. I didn't tell her why. Well, mom, here's why: I wanted to leave it at Bergen-Belsen. In Judaism, leaving rocks on gravestones are a sign of respect and a sign of remembrance that lasts longer than flowers. I left my rock at the Jewish memorial set up by the Central Jewish Committee, British Zone. The inscription said "Israel and the world will remember thirty thousand Jews exterminated in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen at the hands of the murderous Nazis. Earth conceal not the blood shed on thee!" It seemed like a fitting place to leave my rock. A lot of the kids in my group left rocks on the memorials too. They saw it as a sign of respect, but it seemed strange to me because I knew it as a symbolic Jewish gesture. I also saw a lot of dying flowers which was strange to me because the rocks are what I was expecting. Anne Frank said "whoever is happy, will make others happy, too." So I'm choosing to take this experience and change the world.