I had no idea what to expect when I passed through the doorway of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Israel. I was only 16 at the time, and beyond the extermination of 6 million Jews, my family had never really discussed the horrors that befell this European population during World War II.

But the images I saw that afternoon were seared into my brain. Pictures of Jewish families, their garments branded with yellow-cloth badges shaped in the Star of David that said "Jude." The signs that read, "No Jews Allowed," and the anti-Semitic literature, cartoons and pictures, portraying Jews as an inferior human beings.

I found myself moving cautiously through the exhibits, unsure as to what was around the next corner. It was an encounter unlike any I had ever known. Before that day, I did not understand the meaning of anti-Semitism. I had never experienced it. But walking through this museum and realizing that my religion could oust me from my home and be the reason I live or die left me feeling like someone had punched me in the gut.

As I stood there staring at those faces, I was grateful that a country like Israel existed. I took comfort in knowing that this small nation in the middle of an ancient desert was the one place where a Jew could find refuge. I realized how important Israel's survival was.

This country was the reason my aunt had survived the Holocaust. She was from Czechoslovakia, and her family was worried for her safety with Hitler overrunning Europe. They sent her to a summer youth camp in Israel, but when it ended, she stayed in Israel and grew up on a kibbutz--an Israeli farming community. Being sent to a summer camp was one of the strategies many families used to get their children out of countries like Czechoslovakia, and save them from the death camps. Although my aunt survived, the rest of her family perished, and she became an orphan. I only know this much because my mother told me, but I never understood the scope of her experience until I walked through Yad Vashem.

The museum's purpose is clear: Make certain that the holocaust is never forgotten and the world is educated about this time in history. And on that day, the museum had accomplished its objective, leaving one very shocked teenager at a complete loss for words.

The museum was also still evolving when I was there in 1968. It was only 12 years old, and during those early years, the Holocaust and what the Nazis had attempted to do--"The Final Solution," the extermination of all Jews--was not widely understood on a global level. Jews knew, but many non-Jews didn't.

For this very reason, Israel made sure it created this remarkable place, long before the Holocaust museums of Washington, D.C., New York City, Berlin or London were built. Israel placed its museum on the top of a mountain that overlooks the Judea hills, a place where people could come to mourn, to remember and to learn the truth. This week, after 52 years, Yad Vashem is celebrating its new expansion of the Holocaust History Museum that contains something that would have been unfathomable five decades ago--the Hall of Names.

Inside this hall the museum has managed to put a face and name to 3 million of the 6 million Jews that were murdered. In this room, on its dome-shaped walls, are pictures of these individuals commemorating their lives, perhaps the only grave for these lost loved ones. The experience must be overwhelming, to stand underneath 3 million faces, with all those eyes looking out. If I was taken aback in 1968 by the original exhibit, I can only image the impact the new one has.

There are also survivor testimonies as well as original artifacts and personal possessions that have been gathered during the life of the museum, which are now part of the expansion. For those interested, the museum has put an extensive amount of information on its website www.yadvashem.org.

And for those who say the Holocaust never happened, to you I say, buy a plane ticket to Jerusalem and visit the Hall of Names and read the testimonies. For the rest of us, we know that history has many horrors, and that it's important to learn from the past so that perhaps one day, we will wise up and do things differently.

Until we do, a letter from one man who perished in the Holocaust sums it up quite succinctly. In his last letter from Vilnas, Lithuania in 1941, he wrote, "... I should like someone to remember that there once was a person named David Berger."

At Yad Vashem researchers are making sure no one forgets.

Moryt Milo is the editor of The Willow Glen Resident. She can be contacted at 400.200.1051 or mmilo@svcn.com.