Virginia Holocaust Museum
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The Virginia Holocaust Museum is a Virginia museum dedicated to depicting the Holocaust as experienced by its victims. The museum opened its doors at the current location (2000 E. Cary Street, Richmond, Virginia) in April 2003. There are currently 27 exhibits, with more in the planning.
In the first year of operation, over 10,000 visitors toured the museum. People came from almost every state in the U.S., as well as countries in Europe, Asia and South America. The museum has hundreds of school groups visit the museum each year.
[edit] Exhibits
The first exhibit recreates the atmosphere of the Dachau concentration camp. Visitors can either walk through with a tour book or wear a head set and be guided by the voice of Holocaust survivor, Jay Ipson. Ipson was six years old when his family was taken to Kovno Ghetto, and he is now the Executive Director of the museum.
The next exhibit is set in the city of Frankfurt, Germany, and features a radio announcement of "Kristallnacht". Subsequently visitors come to a ghetto exhibit that they can "escape" from by crawling through a tunnel. This escape route recreates the actual experience of the Ipson family.
Other exhibits include a cattle car, used for transporting Jews, a shower/gas chamber, a crematory, and an exhibition of the ship Exodus 1947, the ship that helped launch the nation of Israel. Finally, there is a synagogue, which is a replica of the famous choral synagogue in Lithuania.
The museum features tours, programs, lectures, films and other events, and many of the emphasized stories are about the experiences of Holocaust survivors that reside or had resided in Richmond. The museum is one of many organizations worldwide where young Austrians can serve their Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service (Gedenkdienst).
