Letters Home, Messages Somewhere, Jewish Museum, Berlin

When I think about my visit to the Jewish Museum, what hit me most wasn't the Holocaust Tower, Garden of Exile or the Fallen Leaves installation - although they had an impact - it was the letters. Letters from parents stuck in Germany (facing certain deportation and death) sent to their children in the United States via the offices of the Red Cross. Letters scribbled and thrown from trains on their way to concentration camps, later found and posted. Letters smuggled out of camps.