On Thursday, Jan. 16 and Friday, Jan. 17, McLean High School sophomores took a trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the trip was for sophomores to gain a better understanding of the Holocaust and to make connections to the novel Night written by Elie Wiesel which they are currently reading in class.

After a brief introduction by a docent, sophomores were free to spend about three hours in the museum looking at exhibits on their own. The museum is organized in an unusual way in that visitors begin their tour by taking the elevator to the fourth floor and move down to the ground floor. The story of the Holocaust is told chronologically.

The museum houses an extensive collection of Holocaust-related artifacts, including photographs, models of railway cars which transported victims to concentration camps, and a model of a crematorium. Throughout the museum, videos show footage of interviews with survivors and graphic scenes of atrocities such as piles of corpses waiting to be burned.

Sophomore Jennie Sul’s reaction represents what many of the other sophomores who visited the museum felt at what they saw there.

“I learned a lot of new things about the Holocaust, and I am actually more engaged in Night because I can picture to scene while reading,” Sul said.

It is hoped that students came away from the museum with a better understanding of Elie Wiesel’s novel and of the great suffering which took place during this shameful period in history.