Our Trip Blog

The Events of Tuesday, December 7, 2010

          Today is Pearl Harbor Day. This morning, we woke up, got ready for the day, had breakfast, grabbed our backpacks with our picnic lunch, and headed for the camp office. From there, we skedaddled into the frigid shuttle van to find that Nick was yet not there – hence, the heater was not yet on. After waiting a few confused but very brief minutes, we were on our way to the Metro stop, and the shuttle was on its way to warmth.

          Our shuttle ride has some very interesting landmarks along the way. There is a trailer park across the street from the campground, and two bright yellow houses around the corner of Sands Road and Mt Zion Marlboro Road. Other familiar sights we pass every day are a roadside billboard advertising the benefits of sending your kids to college (“My child will graduate from ____) and a bus stop billboard advertising Coors Light beer with three young, African American men watching a football game and yelling, “Score!”(“Score Refreshment with Coors Light”). Then there is a severely bashed car that is painted with words about driving safely and buckling up on the corner of an insurance lot, a painted wooden snowman advertising the Crafts Festival from last weekend at the local Catholic school, a pretty multi-colored mosaic granite marquee that says “Largo Town Center” and a metallic rainbow reflective sculpture outside the Metro stop. So that’s what we see on the shuttle ride to our Metro stop.

          Then we got on the Metro and rode to the Smithsonian Metro station and followed the signs to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, our first stop as tourists on this chilly day in our great nation’s capital. As we walked in, we absorbed some informative posters and watched a brief documentary about the purpose of this bureau. At the conclusion of the video, we met our tour guide, who led us up a narrow escalator. There, we were privileged enough to see all the high-tech machinery that goes into printing our country’s currency in a manner that best prevents counterfeiting. Next, we viewed an orange table that supposedly vibrates to de-stiffen the sheets of specially embedded paper that will eventually yield 32 bills. We watched as the workers methodically flipped and bent the pile of sheets to make them the flexible bills that we know as money. As we proceeded through the “observation deck” area, we observed another machine that cuts the money from 32-note sheets to single notes (what we call bills). We were also lucky enough to see this machine get jammed and see the employees fix it. Our experience was quick and the tour guide was somewhat unenthusiastic, but many of my questions were answered. Also, it was somewhat more enjoyable than the U.S. Mint, where we just read about how coins were made, as opposed to actually seeing them made.

          Following our brief but satisfactory tour, we explored the gift shop, stumbling upon an ancient currency printer from the Civil War time period, accompanied by a docent to provide demonstration. His very old-looking machine was called an Intaglio “Spider” Hand Press, which consisted of a moveable plank between two steel drums. This demonstration was more interesting than any other part of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing tour. He showed us the microscopic design engraved into a thick steel plate with incredible detail – men with shirtwaists and top hats, horses with pointed ears, carriage wheels with spokes. Then he spread a very dense ink over the solid metal plate, scraped off the excess ink with a thin stiff cardboard plate, and rolled it onto the specially designed paper to make a beautifully printed design.

          Subsequent to that interesting printing demonstration, we went out into the freezing cold winter wind and quickly strode to the front entrance of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Upon first arriving, we and our backpacks went through metal detectors and x-ray machines, respectively. We were asked to sip from each of our water bottles, and then allowed to pass. Our first few stops in the museum were coat check, bag check, the information desk and THEN our first museum exhibit - “Remember the Children: Daniel’s Story”. This exhibit was kid-friendly, yet tear-jerking – even though there were no graphically disturbing pictures or descriptions (besides the fact that Daniel’s mother and sister were murdered). It was distressing to hear that over a million and a half children died simply because their parents were Jewish. Like young hatchlings forced to take flight prematurely, the children of the Holocaust were thrust into a cruel world, leaving behind their innocent, secure lives, entering a world of depravation, isolation and overall horror.

          Once we reached the conclusion of that touching experience, we gathered ourselves emotionally and went out the rear entrance for lunch. Ascertaining we couldn’t eat our food inside the museum’s warm café, we sought out a place between buildings to block the wind, and in the sun to keep us warm, with places to sit and put our food. Our first spot was not very pleasing; the bench was too cold to sit on, so we stood, trying to stay warm while re-energizing ourselves nutritionally. Then Dad, Ben, and Abby found a slightly warmer, sunny spot of wall with a five-inch ledge on which to perch. It looked like it was quite exposed to the wind, because the leaves were dancing in circles on the ground, but it was actually not very windy. So we ate and stayed somewhat warm, watching enviously as the security guards got their Papa John’s Pizza delivered pipin’ hot.

          Then we proceeded back inside through the security at the rear entrance to participate in the Holocaust Permanent Exhibition. This security experience was scarier than the first. After the metal detectors and x-ray machines, one security guard pulled aside the backpacks with liquids  –  but only Abby’s and mine – to a metal table. The mother hen instinct in Mom drew her towards her youngest, who was being interrogated by a scary lady with a gun and a baton. As Mom tried to tell Abby to explain that it was just water, the scary lady with a gun and a baton rebuked her sternly, “Ma’am, I’m gonna have to ask you to step away and go stand over there.” Mom backed away, as Abby, against instructions not to touch her backpack, opened it, retrieved the water bottle in question, opened it, and took another sip. So the scary lady with a gun and a baton let her through.

          Then it was my turn. I took out my water bottle, opened it, took a sip, closed it, and put it back. Then the scary lady with a gun and a baton used pliers to remove a heated little square of cloth out of a machine that said “HOT”, swiped it over my backpack, stuck it back in the machine, and told me that we would have to wait a few minutes for the machine to analyze it. As I relayed the message that we would have to wait a few minutes to Mom, while wondering what this new security test could be for, the machine beeped. The scary lady with a gun and a baton let me pass into the museum, saying mechanically, “Have fun in the museum.” Thoroughly shaken and wondering if my bright blue flowered backpack and hot pink water bottle seemed that much of a threat or if I myself appeared to be a teenage criminal, we headed to The Holocaust, but not until after a stop at the coat check and bag check. We weren’t even planning to carry the bags with us! Security! Later Mom shared how helpless and angered she felt at the treatment Abby and I received. But, as a result, as we walked through the Holocaust exhibits, she felt greater empathy for the fear and wrenching choices the mothers must have felt as they watched their children be taken from them.  

          Before we boarded the elevator to the top floor, from which we would proceed in a downward spiral through the various exhibits, we each selected an identification card from the pile – this was to be our Holocaust victim, our personal guide to the story of horrors. In my rush to make it to the elevator, I accidentally grabbed two. At the end of each floor of the main exhibit, we were supposed to read a single page of our Holocaust victim’s story. When it was over and done with, we would learn whether or not our person survived.

          The Holocaust opened with pictures of concentration camps taken by American armed forces when they liberated the camps. On the opening floor, Nazi Assault—1933 to 1939, we then explored how systematic genocide was allowed to happen, chronicling events in Germany from the Nazis’ rise to power to the outbreak of the Second World War. The displays investigated how the “powerful tools of a totalitarian state – propaganda, terror, violence, and state sponsored racism – allowed persecution to escalate.”

          Next, on the middle floor, The “Final Solution”—1940 to 1945, we scrutinized the wartime fruition of Nazi anti-Semitism, from discrimination to destruction. As Germany’s reign of power stretched across Europe, Nazi officials segregated Europe’s Jews with rules, markings, and removal to ghettos. Not until 1941, with the invasion of the Soviet Union, did Germany turn to genocide. In 1945, when World War II ended, the Nazis and all others unintentionally or intentionally involved had slaughtered over six million Jews. That’s two-thirds of the Jewish population in prewar Europe.

          The final floor, entitled Last Chapter, dealt with the release of the work camps and the Allies’ triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945, rescue and resistance work, and the consequences of the Holocaust, the postwar mission to render justice to those who carried out the methodical massacre of millions of guiltless civilians, and the efforts of Holocaust survivors to reconstruct their lives in Europe, Israel, and the United States. The exhibition ends with the movie Testimony, in which survivors, rescuers, and liberators reveal their experiences. My favorite part of the whole museum was this film, and my favorite part of that motion picture is the following story. Forgive me for copying from the internet, but you have to read their words to understand their experiences best.

          On a boxcar ride to a concentration camp, Gerda Weissmann Klein, an eternal optimist, bet her friend Suze that World War II would last for just six months, while Suze wagered that the war would drag on for several years. At stake was a quart of strawberries in cream. Sadly, when American soldiers liberated the camp, Suze was dead. Gerda Weissmann Klein, now a writer and inspirational speaker, remembered in the video we watched, “All of a sudden I saw a strange car coming down the hill,… not bearing the swastika, but a white star…I've never seen a star brighter in my life. And two men…jumped out…and one came toward where I stood…He was wearing dark glasses and he spoke to me in German. And he said, ‘Does anybody here speak German or English?’ and I said, ‘I speak German.’ And I felt that I had to tell him we are Jewish and I didn't know if he would know what the [Jewish] star means…I was a little afraid to tell him, but I said to him, ‘We are Jewish, you know.’ He didn't answer me for quite a while. And then his voice sort of betrayed his emotion and he said, ‘So am I.’ I would say it was the greatest hour of my life. And then he asked an incredible question. He said, ‘May I see the other ladies?’ You know, what...what we have been addressed as for six years and then to hear this man. He looked to me like a young god. I have to tell you – I weighed 68 pounds. My hair was white. And you can imagine, I hadn't had a bath in years. And this creature asked for ‘the other ladies.’ And I told him that most of the girls were inside…They were too ill to walk, and he said, ‘Won't you come with me?’ And I said, ‘Sure.’ But I didn't know what he meant. He held the door open for me, and let me precede him, and, in that gesture, restored me to humanity…. And that young American today is my husband.”

          And her husband, Kurt Klein’s side of the story goes like this: “But over on the other side, leaning…against the wall next to the entrance of the building, I saw a girl standing, and I decided to go walk up to her. And I asked her in German and in English whether she spoke either language, and she answered me in German. And I asked about her companions…and we went inside the factory. It was an indescribable scene. There were women scattered over the floor on scraps of straw, some of them quite obviously with the mark of death on their faces…All of them looked just horrible, and of course we could see they were emaciated and ill. And something that I have never been able to forget was an extraordinary thing that happened. The girl who was my guide made sort of a sweeping gesture over this scene of devastation, and said the following words: ‘Noble be man, merciful and good.’ And I could hardly believe that she was able to summon a poem by the German poet Goethe, which is called ‘The Divine,’ at such a moment. And there was nothing that she could have said that would have underscored the grim irony of the situation better than what she did. And it was a totally shattering experience for me.”

          Alongside the theater, the following poignant quote graced the wall, proclaiming for all to see:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out –

Because I  was not a trade unionists.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me –

and there was no one left to speak for me.”

                                                - Attributed to Martin Niemöller, anti-Nazi German pastor

          As we left the exhibit, we opened our identification cards to the last page to read the fates of our Holocaust victims. One of the two of my Jewish women survived by fleeing the country with her husband and two-year-old daughter. The second woman, however, did not.  The preceding page’s last sentence had betrayed my second Holocaust victim’s inevitable death, so I expected her to die. Yet, it was still so heartbreaking. We had traveled together through the museum. And the museum was only a representation of the horrors of the Holocaust, yet it was still incredibly heartbreaking. My Holocaust victim had lived the real Holocaust and had lost her life in a gas chamber, one of the Holocaust’s harshest cruelties.