Ohh Saturday

Yesterday, I had a very productive sight visiting day. First, we visited the Newseum as a group and saw some very interesting and moving exhibits. My favorite exhibit was the portion where there was newspaper headlines/front pages dating back over 300 years. I saw a headline that read, “A New Constitution” signifying the American transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution that we know today. It became a reality for me that our nation is in reality very, very young, especially if we were reporting this switch on newspaper that we still turn to today for much of our news. The World Trade Center exhibit really engulfed your attention and emotion as reporters recounted running for their lives but still trying to give a first-hand experience of the awful day. The hundreds of headlines from throughout the United States surrounding a piece of rubble took me over as I entered the exhibit.

After the Newseum, a few of us headed over to the Holocaust museum. After going in the wrong direction for 20 minutes, we finally made it there and arrived to a rather large line also waiting to get in, in the freezing cold. It took us a while to understand where to actually find the exhibits but after 30 minutes, we were able to take elevators up to the top floors that were FILLED with so many pictures and actual objects from the victims of the Holocaust. There were 3 major sections to the museum, the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, the deportation and concentration camps and after the rescue. The reality surrounding you made you feel anxious and sick to see the atrocities before your eyes that you could not do anything about. The extent of their terror on surrounding nations such as Poland, Italy, Romania, etc. just inflated a reality that only felt like a minuscule amount on paper. The pictures and the tools used to classify the “superior race” on display made me think about how my very Polish features with my dark brown hair and dark brown eyes set me in the same category of the pictures presented of the “inferior race” exterminated by Hitler. This realization absolutely blew me away. The final emotional blow came was we passed two piles of shoes from the actual victims, not only could you see them but you could smell them. You could smell the reality that the shoes once belonged to these people. I could not and still can not believe how I can look at these objects and pictures that are over 60 years old and feel sick that innocent humans were being humiliated and murdered without a care of their human value while those actually in the moment ignored this reality.