Tuesday, March 24
Holocaust Museum…
We’re back from DC, had a great trip…great time with as a family, saw a few good friends, and did the ‘Washington Thing’ for a couple of days.We visited the Lincoln Memorial, took a tour of the Capitol Building, Smithsonian, etc. Most was pretty good, but by far, the most amazing was the Holocaust Museum.
Actually, I’m not sure ‘amazing’ is the right word…probably ‘intensely emotional’ works better. It was the first time I had visited…it was just such an incredible place.
And in terms of portraying the emotion, pain, and unbelievable hate and violence that is unfortunately represented by the Holocaust, the museum did that unbelievably as well.
I assume many of you have been…what are your thoughts?
Mark Nelson at 2:58 PM 2comments
2 Comments
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at 10:46 PM
Justin said... I know that for me the holocaust museum was a time of intense soul searching. I don't mean that in the idea of trying to figure out who I am, rather in the sense of who we are. I think I left the museum proper with a naive idea of "we' (whether that is America, the Church, or whatever) would never let that happen again. However that naivety was drained by going into the exhibit on Darfur (not sure if it is still there), and saw that genocide is still a grotesque reality. A reality that must be stared in the face and boldly told no more. The question for me, and for all is who will boldly stand and stare death and evil in the face? But as the whole I think the most moving part of the entire museum was the shoes that you have pictured, especially the poem that accompanied them:
"We are the shoes, We are the last witnesses
We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers.
From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam
And because we are only made of fabric and leather
And not of blood and flesh,
Each one of us avoided the Hellfire"
-Moses Schulstein, Yiddish poet-
at 12:07 AM
said... I haven't been to the DC museum, but I have been to Auschwitz. It was one of the most sobering experiences I have ever had.
The shoes, and a display of a pile of crutches, artificial limbs, and assistive devices really struck me. Also, the pictures of prisoners.
Unfortunately, many are massacred in insidious genocides that are invisible to our American eyes here in the States. I think the rememberance of the Holocaust indicts us to do something...we can't claim ignorance as our protection any longer.