100 Raoul Wallenburg Place SW, off 14th St at Independence Ave. Closest Metro stop is Smithsonian. Daily 10am5.30pm. Admission free . tel 202/488-0400, www.ushmm.org
Nothing in DC is more disturbing than the large and generously laid-out US Holocaust Memorial Museum . Commemorating the persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazis, it places Hitler in historical perspective while personalizing the suffering of the individual victims.
In addition to case after case of newspapers and newsreels documenting Nazi activities from the early 1930s through the "Final Solution," reconstructions and in many cases actual relics of Warsaw Ghetto streets, railroad cattle-cars and concentration camp barracks fill the top floors. The sheer numbers of people killed is chillingly evoked throughout, first by a whole room filled with shoes stolen from deportees, later by a crisp glass wall etched with the names of the hundreds of eastern European Jewish communities wiped off the map.
Tickets for specific entry times are available free of charge from 10am each day with a limit of four per person at the 14th street entrance. You can also reserve in advance through Tickets.com (tel 1-800/400-9373; fee charged). If you arrive without a ticket any later than mid-morning, you're unlikely to get into the permanent exhibition, but a certain number of temporary displays are usually open to all visitors.