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I have heard a few Holocaust survivors speak and each of their stories is unique and inspiring.
1. I’ve never been to a holocaust museum. 2. I worked with a holocaust survivor when I was nineteen. No matter how hot it got she always wore a cardigan sweater and would only push up the sleeves a little bit. She did this to keep the numbers tattooed on her arm covered. She would never talk about it. The manager was the one who told me and explained her funny walk was because of being shot in the knees as a child. She did talk to one of the cooks about her experiences and the manager knew, but she wouldn’t talk about to any one else. She was a very sweet lady and I can’t even begin to comprehend what she went through.
1. I went to a few places the year I Eurorailed around for six weeks - that was almost twenty years ago now. I went to Anne Frank House, to Dachau Concentration Camp, to the New Synagogue in Berlin, and also in Berlin the monument to book burnings. I went to peace museum and I can’t recall if it was in Korea just before my trip to Japan or if it was in Japan itself, but it included a room about the Holocaust.
2. I have not. I’ve read a fair number of Holocaust memoirs. I’ve also met a Halmoni - this is Korean for grandmother and refers to the comfort women, Korean women taken by the Japanese military to act as sex slaves for the Japanese military. It’s not the same experience, but I think of a very similar nature in many ways. The closest I’ve ever been to being arrested was while attending a protest in front of the Japanese embassy with the Halmoni.
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I found the Holocaust memorial at the end of the Isle de la Cité in Paris the most moving memorial. I have visited Auschwitz where the piles of shaving brushes was incredibly moving. Most towns in Germany have a plaque commemorating the Jewish people who were killed and I have also visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, but I have not ever met a holocaust survivor in person, only in books.
I have visited the Documentation Center in Nuremberg which is an amazing museum which documents the events leading up to and then the actual terrors of the Nazi era. The exhibits are full of intimate details and a great deal of film footage, voice recordings and photographs. You wind through the halls and pick and choose what you want to watch but by the end I was devastated. I have not heard a holocaust survivor speak except through their written words and recordings. However, I know a couple of children of survivors and they have incredible stories to tell about their parents and of their own coming to terms with the holocaust. I have seen the Holocaust memorial in Paris but the one in Budapest really impacted me. It is a memorial for those who were shot by the fascists by the River Danube in 1944/45. The victims were ordered to take off their shoes, and then were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. The memorial simply is shoes. All the shoes left behind on the bank of the beautiful river.
1. Have you ever been to a Holocaust museum? If so which ones?I have been to the Holocaust museums in Washington, DC and Atlanta.
2. Have you ever heard a Holocaust survivor speak? If so tell us about it.
My husband's uncle's in-laws were both Holocaust survivors. They were in their late teens/early 20's during the war. After the war, they and a few of their remaining relatives relocated to Chile. I had only been in their company on a couple of occasions and didn't feel comfortable asking them questions. Their daughter, my husband's aunt, said they did not like to talk about their experiences and there was a lot that even she didn't know.
No, I haven't had any personal experiences or visited any museums.
Has everyone seen this article?http://www.newsweek.com/one-third-ame...
I’m quite startled by this information. Some seem to be trying to actively deny, like people questioning the numbers. But I’m finding it hard to wrap my mind around people who have never heard of Auschwitz.
I didn’t learn a lot about the Holocaust in high school - we were a small, more rural school and while the education was great, we had fewer class options. The only history course that would have covered this was my Canadian history class but we were running out of time once we hit WWI and so everything afternwas rushed. I did take a course on the Holocaust in University.
But I mean, don’t people read? Watch movies? How can this level of ignorance exist???
Chinook wrote: "Has everyone seen this article?http://www.newsweek.com/one-third-ame...
I’m quite startled by this information. Some seem to ..."
Because for whatever reason, we have made ignorance cool...and a click you can belong to supporting everything from Holocaust Denial, to Clinate Change deniers, evolution versus creationism, anti-vaxxers, and flat earthers... now Sandy Hook was a conspiracy and all those parents and kids of mass shootings are actors.
I think it’s part of that whole making educated people elitist and therefore unimportant. It isn’t helped any by the companies and/or politicians that invest tons in discrediting science & history to further their product sales/elections (we saw it with tobacco in the 70’s, then oil in the 80’s, now with fossil fuels and guns) and all that lifetime of society saying science is wrong, our company scientists know better and the elites are lying to you and trying to control your behavior, adds up over time.
It’s such a flip from the age where science saved lives with vaccines, created the first computer which now is so small the same computing power fits in your pocket, and got us to the moon....oh wait, there’s a conspiracy theory for that one too, nevermind.
I wish I knew the answer to fixing it, and educating people, but my dad’s still convinced a certain birth certificate is faked, and my nephew is convinced the earth it really flat. 🙄. We as a species, are in serious trouble.
1. Have you ever been to a Holocaust museum? If so which ones?Paris, Berlin. I thought the Berlin one was very impressive.
2. Have you ever heard a Holocaust survivor speak? If so tell us about it.
Yes, a few. No matter who they are, the stories are so sad that they tear you apart if you think about it. I also met people who lived hidden for years during the war. Good thing we also had these. It helps knowing that even in the midst of terror, humanity and kindness were to be found.
Gail wrote: "I have visited the Documentation Center in Nuremberg which is an amazing museum which documents the events leading up to and then the actual terrors of the Nazi era. The exhibits are full of intima..."I had forgotten that I have also visited the Nuremberg museum and also the one in Frankfurt. I noticed inconspicuous brass plaques set amongst the cobblestones in Salzburg, Dresden and Berlin when I visited recently. The ones in Berlin affected me the most because they were very close to the pleasant square where we were staying. I was motivated to start the book.
Melissa wrote: "Chinook wrote: "Has everyone seen this article?http://www.newsweek.com/one-third-ame...
I’m quite startled by this informatio..."
I recently read Educated, by Tara Westover in an effort to understand what is happening in the United States. Tara was "homeschooled", which meant she was mostly self-taught, and she had never heard of the Holocaust when she attended college. There must be many such pockets of ignorance in the U.S!
2. Have you ever heard a Holocaust survivor speak? If so tell us about it.