Well, recently you've seen a couple of pictures of me in silly chain mail fairy wings, and with stapled ribbon on my arms...and you've probably thought it's some pretty weird stuff, sure, but I am a strange ranger and that's what I do best. Maybe it made you smile, maybe it didn't.
However, I'm also a very serious-minded person. I have studied the Holocaust all my life, you know. I don't believe you've ever been there, to the Museum in DC, have you? I would have heard about it if you had. So, since you're a friend of mine, I will now take you on a personal, but brief tour of my Museum. I'd love the chance to take you through the exhibitions someday, as well. I'd want you to see it through my eyes, and I'd love to share my knowledge of this place with you. I know it like the back of my hand.
Here are some photos that mean the world to me.
This is me, standing inside the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, where I used to work.
There is an Amish gentleman walking by. We would get a lot of Amish people visiting, believe it or not. You can see the white marble wall behind me. Opposite of this white wall is a dark black marble wall, which symbolizes good vs. evil, Nazi vs. Jew, etc. The lights on the floor to the right have a sudden gap between them. This symbolizes the sudden end of life---light = life---during the Holocaust, and the beginning of a new life for the victims families and Survivors, afterwards. Everything in this Museum is symbolic, especially the architecture.
And this is the other side of the lobby, where the black marble wall is, along with the huge staircase that symbolizes and resembles train tracks going through the archway at Auschwitz. This area in front with the black steel beams, is resembled after bus stations that took Jews to the ghetto's. The entire lobby is meant to remind people of the stark industrial and impersonal feel of the camps. Harsh cement floors, formidable brick walls, and only small glimpses of the sky overhead through the cracks of the barrack's ceilings. The upside down V's to the right, inside the brick walls, are symbolic of a family's home, turned completely upside down by the Nazis and the Holocaust. To the left of this photo behind the brick wall, are the 3 elevators---meant to look like the ovens---that you have no choice but to go inside in order to go up to the 4th floor...up, up, up, like plumes of smoke from the chimneys as people were being incinerated...and then you make your way downward through the chronologically historical exhibition, which is symbolic of "the downward spiral of mankind" before, during, and after the Holocaust. At the end of the exhibition, you learn about people who risked their lives to rescue Jews, like Miep Gies, and you can light a candle and hear testimonies of Survivors telling their stories.
James Ingo Freed was the architect who built the Museum. He traveled to a lot of camps to get ideas for it.
As I spent the day here, during my vacation, I still found myself answering questions and directing people to the bathrooms. It was surreal. But, that's what I used to do every day. That, and give tours of the exhibitions to groups of all ages, ethnicities, nationalities, K-12, seniors, and however large or small. This was the job I never wanted to leave. I wanted to work here until I died. I miss it a lot.
These signs are new. I'm glad they have them now, at the Donors desk in the main lobby. This is Nesse, my sweet Nesse. I love her dearly. She calls me her daughter. Every Wednesday, you will find her here, talking with visitors about her life story, answering questions about the Holocaust, helping them to understand the way things were then. She was only 13 when she heard a knock on the door at her family's home. When he opened the door, her father was shot and killed right in front of her by the Gestapo before she and her family were taken and separated and sent to concentration camps.
This is why, when the security guard at the Museum opened the door for the man who shot and killed HIM, (Stephen T. Johns), I was absolutely hysterically horrified about Nesse having to re-live such a horrible thing. She was there at the desk that day, and at the sound of gunfire, had to jump out of her chair and hide underneath it to avoid ricocheting bullets. No one should ever live through such a thing even ONCE in their lives, but sadly, Nesse has lived through it twice.
Nesse survived 4 camps and a death march, and was liberated at 17. Miraculously, she was eventually reunited with her mother and brothers afterwards.
Read more about Nesse's life story by either going to GOOGLE and typing her name, or by going to the Museum web site, www.ushmm.org, and searching her name.
Here we are together, only a week ago. She has lost weight, and her hair is shorter now.
But her great big bear hugs are still warm and wonderful! I love her like she's my grandma.
One day about 12 years ago, while I was bored working at the coat check area, (my least favorite place), she came over to say hello and asked me what was wrong. I told her I was unhappy, my life was not going well, I was worried, stressed out and upset, etc. She waited a moment, then looked at me with a sparkle in her eyes and pounded her fist on the counter, and said to me, "I am 73 years old, I woke up today from a good sleep, with a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food in my fridge. LIFE IS GOOD!" and with that, she walked away, leaving me feel like a spoiled rotten brat. My problems were diminished in size at that point, with a new perspective on life. Now, when things get me down, I wonder to myself silently, "What would Nesse do?" This woman is an angel on earth.
This is my other favorite Survivor, and another angel on earth, Manya Friedman. She is 86, (same age as Nesse), and she is looking very fragile and pale, she's been very ill. She had a recent stomach surgery, and even though she doesn't want anyone to know it, I know for a fact that she has cancer. She doesn't want anyone to know because she does not like people feeling sorry or pitying her, or treating her differently. She's a tough lady, just like Nesse. She's also the sweetest person you could meet. Despite her own failing health, she still comes to the Museum every week.
This may very well have been the last time I will ever see Manya alive.
We bonded one day, when a group of 3 blind people came to the Museum and wanted a tour. There was no one available from the Education Department, so I took them myself through the children's exhibition of "Remember the Children: Daniel's Story," where they could touch things and hear the story of the fictional boy's life and how it changed and what happened to him and his family. After they finished going through that, I took them upstairs to the Testimony film, where they sat and listened to an hour-long film of Survivors telling their stories. Then, I came to get them and the girl said she needed the bathroom. I left the 2 men there, and took her downstairs to the rest room. Manya was standing there, washing her hands. I introduced the girl to her, and told her that Manya was a Survivor.
This blind girl suddenly burst into tears, and kissed Manya's hand, and kept saying, "OH! I AM SO SORRY, so terribly sorry for all that you went through, you're an amazingly brave person, I am so blessed to have the chance to meet you, it's so awful what they did to you...." and on and on she gushed. Manya stood there silently and patiently, and put her arm around the girl, and finally said, "Do not feel sad or sorry for me, I am the lucky one who made it through a terrible time. Feel sad and sorry for those who didn't. That is why I come here every week to talk with people, so that those others will never be forgotten."
From that day forward, Manya and I have been best friends.
Her story can also be found on the Museum's web site. I was lucky to see her, she typically doesn't come on Wednesdays, but she was the "First Person" speaker for that day, and I sat in a classroom with a group of people listening to her tell her story. I videotaped some of it, even though I'm not supposed to do that. I just knew if I didn't, I would never get the chance again to see her doing what she loved to do the most in this world, and that would break my heart.
Well Stephen, that's me in the nutshell. I have a very serious side, as you can see, and I have a silly, kinky, and maybe you'd even say, an "edgy" side too. I am multi-facted. I am unique.
And finally, I will say a toast, (with a yummy mimosa at Virginia Beach a week ago), to my favorite singer......with the reminder that Lincoln Brewster is coming out with a brand new Christmas CD....are you gonna let him beat you to that?!! He's just a young guitar-playing whippersnapper!!
Get on the ball, Stevie baby, and get that new CD of yours DONE, will ya?!! SMMMMOOOCH!!
Cheers to you, my friend. Love you lots. Bye for now.
Love, Rebecca
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