The noise and bustle of so many visitors can be disconcerting and certainly at odds with the experience that follows, when you first enter the lobby of the United States Holocaust Museum, our national institution for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. The museum also serves as a memorial to the 6 million Jews and millions of others (including gypsies, homosexuals, physically challenged, and political prisoners) who were murdered during the Holocaust. But things settle down as you begin your tour.

You will spend most of your time--anywhere from one to five hours--in the permanent exhibit, which takes up three floors, presenting the information chronologically. When you enter, you will be issued an identity card of an actual victim of the Holocaust. By 1945, 66% of those whose lives are documented on these cards were dead. The tour begins on the fourth floor, where exhibits portray the events of 1933 to 1939, the years of the Nazi rise to power. On the third floor (documenting 1940 to 1944), exhibits illustrate the narrowing choices of people caught up in the Nazi machine. You board a Polish freight car of the type used to transport Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka and hear recordings of survivors telling what life in the camps was like. This part of the museum documents the details of the Nazis' "Final Solution" for the Jews.

The second floor recounts a more heartening story: It depicts how non-Jews throughout Europe, by exercising individual action and responsibility, saved Jews at great personal risk. Denmark--led by a king who swore that if any of his subjects wore a yellow star, so would he--managed to hide and save 90% of its Jews. Exhibits follow on the liberation of the camps, life in Displaced Persons camps, emigration to Israel and America, and the Nuremberg trials. A highlight at the end of the permanent exhibition is a 30-minute film called Testimony, in which Holocaust survivors tell their personal stories. The tour concludes in the hexagonal Hall of Remembrance, where you can meditate on what you've experienced and light a candle for the victims.

Chartered by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1980 and located adjacent to the Mall, the museum strives to broaden public understanding of Holocaust history. In addition to its permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum has a Resource Center for educators, which provides materials and services to Holocaust educators and students; an interactive computer learning center; and a registry of Holocaust survivors, a library, and archives, which researchers may use to retrieve historic documents, photographs, oral histories, films, and videos.

The museum recommends not bringing children under 11; for older children, it's advisable to prepare them for what they'll see. There's a cafeteria and museum shop on the premises.

You can see some parts of the museum without tickets. These include two special exhibit areas on the first floor and concourse: "Daniel's Story: Remember the Children" and the Wall of Remembrance (Children's Tile Wall), which commemorates the 1.5 million children killed in the Holocaust, and the Wexner Learning Center.