Hello from Baltimore

I hope you all had a wonderful Fourth of July. I am still enjoying my stay down here in Baltimore and have had a nice time visiting with friends and family. It's alway a pleasure coming down and relaxing. That is what it is all about. Even yesterday with my brother, he was trying to figure out what to do. He said he would love NYC cause there is always something to do there and lots of options, but Baltimore has none. I think that is kinda what i like. I like the no options... We drove to a neighborhood I had never been too and walked around. There were some cute shops, where i bought myself a necklace, and looked at records. Then we went for a beer and called my friend Jen, who lives close-ish, and hung out for a bit. Later that night went to a place for breakfast. So all in all, a success.

Today we went to DC to visit other friends. Had breakfast there and then afterwards went down to the Holocaust museum. I had been wanting to check it out since it opened. It was done really well. The way they set up the museum was really impressive and it definitely put you in a certain mind set. You get there for a certain time slot and pick up a "passport" of a person who had lived during the Holocaust. It has a brief life story in it. Mine was a woman named Chaje from Czechoslovakia. You read her story and find out at the last page whether she survived or not. Unfortunately, on May 19, 1944 she was sent to Auschwitz with her 2 daughters and nephew and was gassed 2 days later. I found that having this ID card for a person definitely made an impression on you, but kind of would have enjoyed it if I had to find out what happened to her in the end, like have to look up in a computer or something, so that I have interaction with it. But granted, it is the Smithsonian and they only have millions of people going through there daily, so that would be a bit difficult.

The museum has 4 floors. The elevator takes you to the top floor where you learn about the Nazi invasion of Europe and how they started to treat the Jews. I knew lots of this information already as my family was very interested in the history of WWII. I also had a history teacher in my 7th grade that taught us this as well. I was pretty well informed as to what had happened there and during that time. I even remember my parents going to Auschwitz and bringing back a book on what had happened. Odd thing was I remember them storing the book in a drawer next to a chair. It wasn't an easily accessible book, but it was fairly graphic due to the nature of what it was about. Not your average book shelf material. But at the same point, they didn't hide it from me. The top floor goes over all the events leading up to the ghettos.

The third floor is about the concentration camps. This starts with the ghettos and learning about how the sanctioned off the Jews from everyone else and starting to take them away to the camps. They go over the different areas that were largely effected, like Poland. The nice part was that they had the material that was a bit too graphic for little eyes up over a wall where you have to look down at the television screen. Images of people being shot in the mass graves that they had to dig prior to being shot. Not something to have in a little innocent mind. Granted, kids at that time were dealing with that up close and personal. Which raises the question, when DO you teach a kid about this?

I do like how they made you walk around the museum. first you are on a cobblestone street that the Jews weren't allowed to walk on and then you are walking on a raised wooden boardwalk, like the Jews had to do to cross streets and not mix in with the Germans or Polish. And with the crowd of people, you felt just like what the Jews would go through, having to wait for people to move in front of you and constantly walking as though you are cattle.

There were two parts that affected me the most out of the entire exhibit and it was on this floor. One was you are walking along and you have to walk into the cattle car that they shipped the Jews to the concentration camps to. This was an actual car from the camp. Walking up to the car, I was fine. No problem. Then entering the car, I kinda started to freak out in my mind a little. Looking around in this empty car, which was dark and had on stream of light shining through. Once in the car, mind you we are only walking in a straight line, I totally started to panic. I am not prone to panic attacks or anything of the sort. I just kept thinking- WHO was in this car? HOW many people died in this car? There is some bad joujou in this car. I felt ghosts. The smells even.... I just didn't like it. Then I started to get anxious to leave the car. I couldn't be in there any more. i just wanted out. NOW. And of course the line is halted in front of me cause people are reading a sign just outside the car. They don't realize that I am back there not happy. I felt as though they had no clue that I NEEDED to get out of that car. Then i tried to pass the person in front of me and people were blocking the way. I was trying to remain calm, but I so desperately wanted to shove people out of the way. I wanted to push them aside and get the fuck out. Once out, i was amazed at my reaction. I was surprised by it even. I didn't know that I would feel that way at all. And of course I put myself into the shoes of the people that experienced it and realized, yes, I would be one of the people freaking out, but then once those doors opened, I wouldn't want to leave that car.... I told Jeff my reaction to the car later. He has been to this museum every year since it first opened with his 9th grade class. He said he did that car the first time and that was it. He doesn't go through it anymore. I was glad to hear i was not the only one. I did just look up and found out that in reality there is no actual proof that this was a car used to transport Jews. It was one in the same timeframe and likeness, but they can't find any actual data proving it.

The second spot that bothered me was looking at the actual bunks from Auschwitz. Yet again, the smells, the ghosts..... dare i even say, memories.... it was as though I could see people on there... as though i had been there. it was just too real for me. luckily that room was easier to walk away from them, but I was yet again amazed at my reaction.

All in all, I found the museum well done. I think the second floor not as exciting, but i do love the stories of people helping the Jews after they left the camps and still had to hide out. I also like the last video that they have of different survivors talking about their experiences. Unfortunately, I was unable to sit and watch much of it, as the museum was closing in 15 minutes and my dad had finished the museum an hour and half prior to me coming down there..... so I didn't get to see it much of the end video. But I do love hearing the stories and am glad they are preserved.

I do recommend the book Maus by Art Spiegelman . It is beautifully written and the drawings are fantastic. It's a touching tale of his father and himself and how they deal with the effects of Auschwitz in the current day, while telling the story of what happened in the past. So poetic.