Life of Lydia

Dear readers, today we didn’t have any History Day commitments. We visited two Museums in D.C.

To get to the museums from College Park Maryland (Where we are staying) we took the metro trains. This was a bit of an adventure. The whole time I was terrified that we would miss our stop or not be able to get on and off the train in time, or get stuck in the doors as they were closing. But, none of these things happened and we successfully arrived at the Smithsonian train station.

There was some sort of sign about the Ozarks right in front of the Washington Monument. We really have no idea what it’s about.

The outside of the museum of American History. I had a select list of things I wanted to see here. Of course I hoped to see everything related to George Washington. I had seen that there was a partially naked statue of Washington on display at the museum. I thought this was a bit irreverent and that we should skip the statue. To my slight mortification the satue was prominently displayed at the front of the museum, so we couldn’t help but see it. I couldn’t bring myself to take a picture.

The first exhibit we saw (besides partially clothed George) was the star spangled banner. This was the flag that inspired our national anthem. They didn’t allow any photography inside the exhibit. Seeing the flag caused my mom to start crying. She said she was actually crying from being tired, but the flag just triggered the tears.

We went to an exhibit about America at war to see some George Washington artifacts. Here I am blowing a kiss to the Declaration of Independence. (Kissing a paper copy of the Declaration is a part of my performance.)

George Washington’s uniform. This was the main thing I wanted to see in this museum. In the picture I’m trying to put my hands on my heart in a sentimental fashion, but I’m not sure how well I succeeded.

A painting of George Washington.

George Washington’s stool.

George Washington’s box.

The sword of Benjaman Lincoln. (The second in command of the Americans at Yorktown. He was the one who the British officially surrendered to.)

A British flag surrendered at Yorktown. I kind of feel like this should be in the museum at Yorktown, but it’s not and there’s nothing I can do about it.

When I was a little girl, my parents took me to this same museum to see the First Lady’s dresses. I was very interested in Presidents and First Ladies. (I chose Presidents as the theme of my fifth birthday party) I also really liked pretty dresses. I still clearly remember seeing all the first Ladies outfits. I wanted to go back and see them again, but unfortunately, that exhibit was closed, so instead we waited in line a long time to eat lunch at the museum cafe. (Accully, we would have done this anyway.)

In the afternoon, we visited the National Holocaust Museum. I have spent a lot of time reading about this area of history, so I already knew about most of the things in the museum. The museum was VERY crowded. My mother went and sat on a bench for a while to try to get away from the tight spaces. I just embraced the fact that there were a lot of people around.

A few years ago, when I first started reading about the Holocaust, I went through a period of being shocked and depressed. I had never thought about or known that such evil could exist. Now I’ve processed it a bit more. Although it’s not like I wasn’t disturbed by the Holocaust Museeum, I didn’t get that same sickening, disparing feeling that I had before. This is because I already knew what had happened and had worked through and processed it.

I was very glad to see such a large musem dedicated entirely to the memory of the Holocaust. I think it is very, very important to know about it.

This quote is the first thing a person sees as they enter the museum. It is what General Esinhower said after he visited a newly liberated concentration camp. I don’t really need to write out why I think learning about the Holocaust is so important because the quote explains it for me.

At the beginning of the museum, there was a relatively narrow hallway with displays on one side. (This was the especially crowded area that my mother tried to escape) The hallway displays were about the events that led up to the Holocaust. There were some artifacts (example above). The most intersting part were the little T.V.s that showed pictures and videos of important pre Holocaust events (Nuremberg rallies, book burnings, Hitler Youth meetings, etc.) Since I have recieved most of my knowledge about the Holocaust through books, I had never seen these videos before.

This is an example of one of the displays with a T.V.

This was a display about the Nazi book burnings. I read a historical fiction novel called The Book Thief, parts of which are about these book burnings. (I’ve been trying to get my mother to read The Book Thief ever since I read it. She still hasn’t because she’s too busy reading C.S. Lewis, George McDonald, and celebrity memoirs.)

A barrier like what Germon troops crashed through when they invaded Poland. I was only able to get a picture of part of this item due to the excessive amount of people around.

This tower contained pictures of Holocaust victims, all from the same town. (Sorry I don’t remember the name of the town.)

There were a lot of pictures.

There was a special display about Anne Frank. Of course, I have read her diary and a bunch of other stuff about her. (Fun fact: I accidentally stepped on a random lady’s foot when trying to take this picture.)

This is a jug which was filled with documentation about the Holocaust in Poland and burried by Polish Jews.

This is the sign about the jug. My mother started crying when she read it. This evening when we were on the phone with my father, she was telling him about the jug and started to read him the quote from the sign but couldn’t finish due to an abundance of tears. I had to finish reading the quote for her.

One of the train cars that was used to transport people to concentration camps. You can’t tell from the picture, but museum guests could walk through the train car.

The sign about the train car.

An interesting display about the man who took photos of concentration camp prisoners.

A model of the Auschwitz gas chambers. This was more than a little depressing.

There was a wall that had the names of Gentiles who had helped Jews during the Holocaust. We found Corrie ten Boom‘s name. I am 99% sure that the names of the people who hid Anne Frank were on this list, but we didn’t take the time to find them. (The list was really long)

A fire that was at the end of the museum.

The main lobby of the museum. As we were trying to leave an employee told us that we couldn’t because everyone had to stand in the lobby. There were a bunch of employees and security guards around telling everyone to stay put in the lobby. We stood there for a few minutes, then they announced that we all could leave. My mother asked one of the security guards what had been going on. He said that someone had lost their bag and “You don’t leave a bag unattended in a federal building.” Apparently they had brought in dogs to sniff the bag and had determined that it wasn’t a threat, so everyone left and moved on with their lives.

We took the metro back to College Park, Maryland.