Hello. This is Crap Mariner.

With assistance from development company Involve, The US Holocaust Museum has opened an exhibit on Kristallnacht this week on the region named US Holocaust Museum1 within Second Life.

This is not a mere replication of the museum, but an amazing use of the platform to immerse, inform, and enlighten about the events leading up to and on November 9, 1938, when over 200 synagogues were destroyed by the Nazis, homes ransacked, businesses and schools burned.

Nearly 100 Jews murdered, and tens of thousands sent off to concentration camps in what is regarded as the tipping point for the Nazi campaign of extermination of all non-Aryans, the Holocaust.

The visitor is cast in the role of a journalist assigned to investigate and report on the events leading up to and after the slaughter and destruction, sifting through the Nazi propaganda and finding the eyewitness accounts and evidence to help tell the story of this horrible crime against humanity, the first stage in the greatest crime of the previous century.

Examples of the devastation across Nazi-controlled lands are depicted in this street scene

Stolen businesses

Grafitti

And propaganda, blaming this on the Jews themselves

Ransacked homes

Schools

Burnt synagogues

Where the survivors took refuse during the fury

Visitors are encouraged to click on various objects and items to discover what happened, how did this happen, and how this was allowed to happen?

During your exploration, you will hear the testimony of the survivors, sharing their tales of horror and escape, recalling their own confusion and fear during the events.

There are also a set of video testimonies and mini-documentaries after you've finished exploring the build.

Some may ask why recall such horrific events, why not leave the past in the past.

Have we? Cambodia, Rwanda, Kurdistan, Congo, Darfur, Kosovo.

And In light of the threats of destruction and genocide by the President of Iran, the denial that the events depicted here happened at all calling to burn a nation of these survivors off of the face of the earth.

In light of threats and the acts of terrorism conducted by those they sponsor, must one ask if we are doing all we can to ensure such madness and massacre happens never again?

For iReport, this is Crap Mariner reporting from the US Holocaust Museum within Second Life.