My Holocaust Museum Experience In Washington Dc

April 20th 2016 (My 9th Grade Year):

I had taken the train from Frederick, Maryland with my entire German 1 Class to Union Station in Washington DC. My German teacher had this tradition where every other year in April she'd take her German classes to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, I just happened to be part of that trip.

When we arrived at Union Station we broke up into groups of 5, we were to go get some food, go to the restroom, then meet up with everyone else in the middle of the Station. After all of us returned to Frau, we walked to a bus stop that would take us from Union Station all the way to the Holocaust Museum. When we arrived at the entrance of the museum I chose 4 other kids to be in my group, I only remember the name of one group member, Jason. So after getting our bags checked we entered the museum, we then had to sit through a 25 minute lecture (which was normal for the museum). After the lecture, Frau let us go with our groups to explore the museum.

Once my group got to the first exhibit I didn't feel right, so I took out my rosary and started to pray for protection, but after 2 minutes of me silently praying Jason cut me off, he's a hardcore Atheist, this is what he said, "stop praying, you're hurting me." I stopped praying like he said and put my rosary back in my purse, I didn't get to finish praying, now this is where things took a turn.

My group and I began walking around the museum checking out every exhibit, everyone in my group were acting normal but also respectful, but, for me, this wasn't the case. As we were walking I began to feel light headed, I brushed it off as being me not taking Advil before the train ride so I kept walking. But, as we got deeper into the museum I was still feeling lightheaded and it was slowly getting worse, the entire left side of my back felt like it was on fire, I squinted a little at the feelings. We continued on and my condition wasn't getting any better, the deeper we were in the museum the worse my pain got.

Soon we were near a bridge made of glass and on either side of the bridge there were long glass panels and on the other side of the panels were real shoes with real dried blood from the Jews. I was walking slowly across the bridge, I was still lightheaded, the left side of my body still felt like it was on fire and now another feeling was added, near my lower back it felt like someone was kicking it with a metal tip on their boot, but it wasn't just a small kick, no, it was a harsh kick that really hurt. After we crossed the glass bridge, I walked past a glass container that had the Nazi flag in it, I stopped for a second and looked at the container, then I saw someone who looked transparent, he obviously wasn't from this time period and he also looked way too old to be part of my group. The semi transparent man looked to be covered in blood and soot, his clothes were torn and he had a black eye, I felt my pain grow stronger. Jason noticed that I was staring at the glass and not moving, he called out to me and I snapped back to reality, I walked over to him and he lead me back to the group. At this point, we were almost out of the darkest parts of the museum, the pain I was feeling was so bad I felt like I was going to pass out. I just couldn't take it anymore, dry tear stains were on my cheeks because I was silently crying, but I pressed on so I could get to the last part of the museum and be done with this.

My group entered a place in the museum called "The Hall of Remembrance" the moment I stepped into that hall, all of the pain I was feeling somehow disappeared like it was never there to begin with, for the rest of my time in DC I was happy and laughing.

When the train brought us back to Frederick I found my dad and walked with him to his car, as we were heading home I told him about everything that happened to me in that museum. He seemed shocked but then said to me that it was probably Jesus showing me what the Jews felt during the Holocaust and I was feeling the pain that they felt.

I am now 18 years old and I've graduated from my high school, this is an experience that I'll never forget, and about that bloody man I saw in the museum, that was most definitely an apparition, I believe in ghosts, I'm not a skeptic at all. I also believe that what my dad told me on the way back from the train station was true, ever since then, I've never had any other experiences like that, that experience will stay with me until the day I die.