United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Fewer than 10 percent of its nearly 50 million visitors are Jewish — this place was deliberately built for everyone.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Washington offline.
America's official Holocaust memorial opened April 22, 1993, with a stated mandate: confront hatred, prevent genocide, strengthen democracy. Its collections hold 49 million pages of archival documents, 85,000 historical photographs, and 9,000 oral history testimonies — a density that forces the history from abstraction into individual lives. Researchers here have documented 42,500 ghettos and concentration camps across Nazi-controlled Europe.
What to look for
- The 85,000 historical photographs in the museum's permanent collections
- Oral history testimony materials drawn from 9,000 oral history testimonies in the permanent collection
- The research scale: 42,500 documented Nazi-created ghettos and camps, mapped across German-controlled Europe 1933–1945
Sits in the same geographic cluster as the Smithsonian museums — pair it with a neighboring institution and budget a full half-day.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Washington, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Washington pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Washington
- White HouseBritish forces torched it in 1814. It has been the U.S. president's home and office ever since.
- The PentagonDesigned and built in 16 months during World War II — 17.5 miles of corridors, a five-acre central courtyard, and a 9/11 memorial at the exact point of impact.
- United States CapitolEvery street address in Washington DC radiates outward from this building — it is literally the zero point of the city.
- Washington MonumentThe faint color seam partway up the shaft marks where construction stopped for 23 years.
- Smithsonian InstitutionBritish scientist James Smithson left a bequest that became 157 million objects, 21 museums, and a zoo — almost all free to walk into.
- Arlington National CemeteryThe ground holding 400,000 graves was seized from Robert E. Lee's own family over an unpaid tax bill in 1864.