The Holocaust Museum celebrates twenty years. I remember my first visit there, I was overwhelmed. Reading about that time period is just not the same as being handed a “passport” of human being that went through the holocaust and not knowing til the end of the “tour” whether your new identity survived.
I have been several times since that first time, and I am probably due for a visit. I haven’t been since having children, and I imagine, my feelings will be different, evolved as a mom, as a Jewish mom.
It is obvious to me though that human beings haven’t changed much since that time period, and as the survivors of the concentration camps die, the responsibility of us all to learn the lessons and pass them on become more critical.
The Holocaust Museum is the testament to evil that man can do, but it is as strongly a tribute to the those who stood up against hate, sometimes, at the cost of their own lives.
As we reflect upon the lessons of the Holocaust, ask yourself, what would you have done?
I invite you to watch my Grandmother’s cousin story, Izzy, an Auschwitz survivor. The password is Izzy.
Moon,
As you well know, I was a History & PoliSci major. I studied WWII extensively, and thought I would be prepared for the experience of the Holocaust Museum, able to view the exhibits with the emotional detachment of a scholar. I was not, and it was very close to being overwhelming. For me, it was the smell: they had an oven from one of the camps on display. I will never forget the smell, as long as I live.
I went to the Holocaust museum in Richmond. Jay Ippson is its founder. I interviewed him for my history class. Turns out that he is best friends with one of my wife’s cousins. His family’s story is told there.
Cargo,
Is the Richmond museum better for children to visit?
@Steve, How did they get the oven in there? Funny thing about smells. My father always told me the thing he would never forget about the war was giong into Antwerp and how it smelled. He wasn’t actually in combat but received the combat medal because of being somewhere that suffered V-bombing.
I can’t get over how the museum was able to infuse you in the feelings that people must have experienced.
I think the shoes were what I remember to this day and I have only been once, right after it opened.
@Elena
I don’t know. I haven’t made it to the DC one.
But Mr. Ippson said that he designed it with 7/8th graders in mind. Its still very serious. I wouldn’t bring my daughter casually.
@Moon-howler
Not sure if it was the “whole oven” or just a part of one, as I had never seen one standing. There was a door, and blackened brick in a diarama-type display. This was was back in 1994, not long after they opened. Not sure if it’s part of the permanent collection, or if it was on-loan from another organization. All I know is that it had the desired impact on me, especially the smell. I’ve only smelled something similar when I had occasion to be near an Okinawan cematorium, when it was operating.
@Moon-howler
Smells are permanent in your memory. Readers’ Digest did a piece several years ago on smells and the emotional attachment that goes with them. Cigar smoke and popcorn remind me of my maternal grandfather. On Saturday nights we would go to my grandparents’ home to listen to the radio shows and my grandfather would pop popcorn that we ate from newspaper cones made up by my brother and me. Fried onions remind me of a little dinner in my home town, where an “old Greek” served them on hamburgers that were 10 cents apiece–12 for $1.00 cents or maybe it was 5 cents apiece, 12 for 50 cents–it was about 1938-39 when I was 5 or 6 years old. But smells last forever–my strongest memory of my time in Vietnam is the smell of blood and that was more than 45 years ago.
I can still smell a particular flower called that my great aunt called flox. I sure haven’t seen that plant in any nursery for more years than I am willing to admit on this blog.
but I can still smell it and when I do, I think I can hear a woods trush song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3NRnJY9hSY
More woods thrush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-22ZuQyAJ4
You can see it singing in this video.
Thoreau thought the woods thrush had the most beautiful of all the songs.