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Irony: Alive and Well at the Holocaust Museum

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The Rules Will Be Followed

United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum

I have been working these past few years as a Washington, DC, city guide.  It’s a bit like working for the fire department.  Every day is different, nothing ever goes quite as planned, and you meet a lot of people along the way.

In addition to “interpreting” the city and its history, part of the job is acting as escort to help out-of-town folks negotiate unfamiliar territory as they visit the sites and the museums.  Whether it’s the White House, Capitol, Supreme Court, Mount Vernon or any of the other dozens of locations they all have their way of dealing with visitors.

Some require a security screening that may be largely cursory all the way up to the “no non-sense” operation at the Capitol.  Most balance the need for order and security with the idea that visitors should have the best experience possible as part of the objective of learning and civic engagement.

The United States Memorial Holocaust Museum (USMHM), federally supported with the mission of  teaching the history of the Holocaust and keeping us ever vigilant to the occurrence of genocide, takes an unusual approach to the visitor experience.  Students of history or even those who have seen a film such Sophie’s Choice, based on the best-selling novel by William Styron, will be familiar with the officious, unforgiving, bullying nature of death camp guards towards those arriving there.

I very recently took a group of young folks to the USMHM during a cold snap for a pre-arranged appointment.  We were right on time and had 90 minutes to spend there.  It was a blustery day with temperatures in the 30′s.  I had the kids stand in the sun as I went to make contact with the visitor representative.

He was dressed in a parka fit for the South Pole complete with the hood up.  I identified our group and our number(56)  and he studied his clip board only to announce that I could not enter until a second group of some 56 more arrived on another bus.  We knew not where the other bus was nor exactly when it might arrive.

As the kids shivered in the cold I pointed out that we had to go through security anyway so why not allow us to do so to speed up the process, save time and get them warm.  ”No” was the answer.

I tried speaking with other personnel.  When my unyielding “guard” was finally told to allow us to enter by a supervisor, he turned to me and said, “If your group goes in you will be forfeiting the reservation for the other 56.”   For those who have in fact seen Sophie’s Choice, I was in a similar situation.  In allowing my group to enter, I would prevent the others from doing so.  Of course, I declined and we cooled our heels (literally) until the others arrived.

All 112 of us now made our way through security before being allowed to queue up for the elevator that would take us up to the exhibition level.  We originally arrived with 90 minutes to experience the museum and 34 minutes had now ticked by as we waited to start.  I pointed out to a colleague that earlier that day we had toured the Washington National Cathedral in less time than it was taking us to enter the USMHM.

It’s hard to imagine that the USMHM can believe that it is fulfilling its mission by treating visitors in such a way.

But, rest assured–the rules were followed.

And, at long last, the elevator finally arrived.

 

Posted by on February 20, 2013 • Filed under: (Almost) Hidden DC, Books, Different, History, Travel, Values and Ethics, War and Peace

Travel: TIRE(D)

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Now, That’s a Workout.

Rickenbacker Causeway/Biscayne Bay

 

I spent part of this past week near Miami, Florida, sailing on Biscayne Bay.  The Bay separates the mainland from Miami Beach where the smart set go to trendy clubs.

The Bay is large and full of manatees, dolphins and rays.  This time of year the wind is good and the sailing, at least on an 18-foot catamaran, is fast.

 

 

Nixon with Rebozo and Hoover

 

The Bay also separates the City from Key Biscayne, a generally wealthy enclave perhaps best known as the southern White House of Richard Nixon where he also vacationed with his longtime friend Bebe Rebozo.

Rebozo was referred to as Nixon’s “bagman” and was thought to have taken payments for Nixon from Howard Hughes and others.

 

Rickenbacker, WWI Ace

The Causeway leading over the Bay to Key Biscayne is named for Edward Vernon “Eddie” Rickenbacker (1890-1973).

Rickenbacker fought to become  a pilot during the first World War with the 94th Aero squadron.  He was deemed to be too essential as a gifted engineer/mechanic but finally won his wings.

He went on to score 26 aerial victories, the most of any WWI pilot and eventually received the Congressional Medal of Honor.  He is pictured here in his Spad XIII.

 

Tire Drag

 

As my sailing day came to a close, I began my walk south, over the fairly steep causeway back towards downtown Miami.  Coming toward me, just exiting the causeway, was what appeared to be an elderly gentleman struggling to jog on what was a hot, sunny, 80 degree Florida afternoon.  I admired his persistence.

As we closed the distance between us I could see that I was wrong, that my elderly man was instead a shaved-head fellow no older than his early forties but still having a pretty tough time.

We nodded as we passed and it was only then that I noticed that he had a harness around his mid-section connected to a rope.  At the other end of the twenty foot rope was a good size truck tire that he was dragging, apparently up and over the causeway.  It was cross-fit on steroids and tough enough to make even Eddie Rickenbacker proud.

I kept walking, momentarily elated that I had crossed paths with someone who makes even me seem normal.  God bless him.

 

(Wiki)

Posted by on January 14, 2013 • Filed under: A Life, Different, Firefighter Safety & Health, History, Safety and Health, Travel

Travel in Nepal: Farming the Old Fashioned Way

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Stepping Back in Time

During my recent trekking trip to northern Nepal we found ourselves well off the beaten track in a world largely untouched by electricity and completely free from mechanized agriculture. Fields are cultivated, sown and harvested using only human or animal power.  It’s early 19th century farming alive and well in 2012.

Livestock

 

 

Goats, sheep, oxen, buffalo, yaks, mules and horses are all plentiful.  Animals are rarely slaughtered for meat since they are far more valuable as sources for dairy products and to help in the fields.

 

 

 

 

 

Rice Paddy

 

 

 

Rice is an extremely important crop even in the steep and hilly valleys.  Over successive generations the land has been terraced to allow for maximum planting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harvest

 

 

We were walking through the country during a harvest period.  Rice and other crops are cut down by hand with whole families pitching in.  Very little is wasted as the rice stalks will be dried and used for fodder for farm animals over the winter.

 

 

 

 

 

Corn Crib

 

 

 

Corn dries in a crib alongside the trail.  It is elevated to keep pests away.  The corn could be used as feed but is also valuable as it can be ground into meal.

 

 

 

 

Making Meal

 

 

Here a young lady is grinding corn into meal.  She uses two flat rocks, one on top of another, with the top one having a hole in the center and a wooden handle for turning.  Dried corn kernels from the pan are dropped into the hole and the spinning of the handle crushes the kernels between the stones.  Meal spills out the sides onto the woven mat.

 

 

 

 

Thresh, Winnow, Fodder

 

 

In the background six buffalo are tightly yoked together and are being driven around a pole.  Their collective weight threshes the rice.  A pile of un-winnowed rice is visible in the center as two men hold winnowing mats.  They toss the rice into the air, the chaff  floats away and at their feet is harvested rice.  On the right, a team takes the threshings and hands them down to a man who is building a stack which will serve as winter animal fodder.

 

 

 

Ready for Winter

 

 

An immaculate field ready for the coming season with rice stalks stacked.  (Note fields in far background.)

 

 

 

 

 

Ganga Fields

 

 

Marijuana grows in the wild; this field stretched for miles.  No one seemed to be tending it though the buffalo were especially content.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by on December 30, 2012 • Filed under: Different, History, Travel

Kathmandu FD

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Nepal’s Bravest

Kathmandu Valley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nepal’s Capital, Kathmandu, is nestled in a broad valley at about 4,000 ft above sea level.  As it is about the same latitude as Key West, Florida, and despite it’s proximity to the world’s tallest mountains, it is surprisingly warm.

The Valley is roughly 220 square miles with about 1,000,000 residents.  Most live in apartments that are sometimes crowded onto very narrow  streets where access of any kind is quite difficult.

Traffic in the city is horrible and is compounded by the fact that many side streets are unpaved mud paths.  Getting around is very difficult.

Center City Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sprawling valley is comprised of three main centers: Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur.  Each has but a single fire station, meaning three for about 1,000,000 people.

Fire protection is obviously on the back Burner, (no pun intended) since the response times and lack of staffing are so great as to render a quick attack impossible.

Firefighter on Duty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kathmandu’s fire station is in the “New Road” area not far from the historic Durbar Square.  The equipment bays face the street and an enclosed and gated courtyard.  The rigs exit through the courtyard for security.  In fact, guards with automatic weapons are on patrol on the grounds.  Some will know that Nepal has struggled with a Maoist insurgency and political instability.  Terrorist attacks targeting the police and the military, especially in the countryside, were once common.

SCBA Bottles and Compressor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much of the apparatus and equipment comes from Europe, often as a donation.  Kathmandu is like much of the rest of the world, including many parts of the US where fire protection is either an after-thought or entirely ignored.  Police protection takes pride-of-place over fire safety and protection.  Perhaps because of the extreme shortage of resources,  nuisance fires are allowed to burn in streets and vacant lots where they add to the pollution and can easily spread to structures.

Fire protection plays “Second Fiddle” the world over.

Posted by on December 19, 2012 • Filed under: Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighting Operations, Fires, Travel

Himalayan Kingdom: Heading to Nepal

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Half the Fun is Getting There?

I am on the way to the Himalayas for a month to trek and spend time in Kathmandu, if I ever get there.

This is my fourth trip to Nepal but it’s been sometime and I guess I forgot that it is not around the corner, by a long shot.

Some will recall that it is a fairly small country, 57,000 square miles and it is squished, literally, between India and Tibet.  The southern part of the country mirrors the climate and topography of India while the same is true on the Tibetan side.   It is there that eight of the ten tallest mountains in the world spring up from the grinding together of opposing tectonic plates.

In search of the cheapest business class fare, I flew from Baltimore to Chicago where I caught an Air India flight, non-stop, to Delhi, where I sit, waiting on the final leg up to Kathmandu.  That’s 14 1/2 hours from Chicago on a B-777-300 ER with additional four hour layovers here and there.  I remain amazed that any airplane can fly that far non-stop but it is even more amazing that on arrival at Delhi it would be serviced in a few hours and on the way back to Chicago.  That’s the ticket, day-after-day.

As an American, the cabin service seems funny–it’s chaos in the kitchen and you just eat what they bring till you can’t anymore.  But always with the opening question, “Veg or non-veg?”  After ordering non-veg, they came around with a cart and I dutifully ate the fish and chicken they offered only to later discover that it was simply an appetizer. Dinner looked good, even if I didn’t eat it when it arrived because I was stuffed.

Delhi is as I remembered it, at least from the air, is sprawling and very polluted with the sun setting in one of those orange hazes where it is a burning ball, viewed through noxious gases.  One of my enduring memories of the city is a pedestrian fatality laying in the middle of a busy street, surrounded by traffic cones, as people went there merry way, careening.  Life (and death) has a different price here.

Well, it’s time to head to the gate.  Catch up soon.

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Posted by on November 3, 2012 • Filed under: A Life, Different, Travel

Not a “Trusted Traveler”: Yongda Huang Harris

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Boston Resident, Returning From Japan, Detained

Mr. Harris

Suit case contents:

“Knives, body bags, a hatchet, a collapsible baton, a biohazard suit, a full-face respirator, billy clubs, handcuffs, leg irons and a device to repel dogs” (NYT)

(and a smoke grenade.)

Yongda, a US citizen, was also wearing a bullet-proof vest and flame resistant pants.

In a bizarre twist to an already odd story, Mr. Harris has retained Steven Seiden who also is representing Mark Basseley Youssef, the man responsible for the recent anti-Islam and violence producing video.

A spokesperson for Attorney Williams described Harris as,”very intelligent, earning A’s in high school and college calculus.”

Well then, that explains it.

 

(Sources:  NYT, AP, CBS)

Posted by on October 10, 2012 • Filed under: Different, Travel

Road Trip: Marlene, Albert and Me

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San Diego

This past week I visited friends in the Pacific Beach area of San Diego, a place with virtually perfect weather and stunning outdoor scenery.

After a few days there, perhaps to remind myself of what I was missing in DC, I made a trip east over the mountains to hike in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.  Descending into the desert plain the temperature steadily climbed from the 70’s of San Diego to over 100.

Anza-Borrego

The scenery changed too—the lush green of the temperate coast was replaced by the shimmering reds and yellows of cactus and desert geology.  The trail I hiked, Plum Canyon, slowly but steadily climbed through a bone-dry wash inhabited by jack rabbits and birds.

The scale of the place is so vast, vertically and horizontally, that judging distances visually is just about impossible.  The mountains extend up thousands of feet and the desert stretches to the horizon and beyond.  The ridge ahead could be a mile away or five.

Desert View

After hiking for hours I made it back to the car and continued east, eventually to the Salton Sea, the bizarre 525 square mile lake created in 1905 when the Colorado River was accidentally diverted from its course for over a year, flooding a huge area in the process.  Today, it is an increasingly salty (and smelly) gigantic bird bath where few fish survive and development hopes spring eternal.

The Salton Sea

Too tired to drive back to San Diego, I found a place in the desert, well south of Palm Springs, which sounded interesting.  Called the La Quinta resort, it was located in a city of the same name.  In fact, the city is named after the resort which was created in 1926 as a get-away for Hollywood types like Frank Capra.

I packed light for this trip and my choice of a book to read was based solely on size and weight, a small (and old) paperback called, Spandau, the Secret Diaries of Joseph Speer.  Speer, you will recall, was Adolph Hitler’s architect and armaments minister during the Second World War.  At the famous Nuremberg War Crimes trial he was sentenced, along with others, to a lengthy prison sentence, to be served at a prison in Berlin called Spandau.

Albert Speer

On checking into the hotel I requested a quiet room and was given one of the original “casitas” dating from the 1920’s.  It was both charming and cheap as few others go to the desert in August.  While looking around the small cottage I came across a Hollywood “star” on the wall dedicated to Marlene Dietrich, the famed German-American actress and performer.  I learned that she had stayed there.  So, I would be spending the evening, spiritually at least, with two famous Germans, Dietrich who spurned the Nazis and worked in the Allied War effort, and Speer who ranked among Hitler’s closest advisers.  Perhaps the ghosts of terror, past.

La Quinta Casita

Marlene Dietrich was born in 1901 and was famous in the Berlin scene in the 1920’s.  She became an America citizen in 1939, on the eve of the war.  Her time in Germany in the late 20’s and 30’s must have convinced her of the brutality of the Nazis and of what would lie ahead.

Marlene Dietrich

She was a passionate advocate for the Allies, selling more war bonds than anyone else.  She traveled to Algeria, Italy, France and Germany with Patton and other generals to entertain troops.  She even helped the OSS, the early clandestine spy branch, by recording songs for use in demoralizing enemy soldiers.  Dietrich was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the US in 1947.

One wonders whether she and Speer ever crossed paths in pre-war Germany. They were close in age.  Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and certainly was spending time in Berlin after he was chosen as the Reich’s architect.  After the war began, he played a central role in the production of weaponry.

Speer, alone among his compatriots, accepted practical and moral responsibility for the role that he played.  Justice Robert Jackson, the chief US prosecutor at the trials, told Speer that he respected him for his behavior at Nuremberg.  In fact, once imprisoned with the Grand Admirals and others, Speer was ostracized by them for his position on Hitler and the immorality of the Nazi cause.

National Socialist German Workers Party

Speer spent 20 years at Spandau trying to understand his relationship with Hitler as well as his own actions.  His diaries capture a circuitous mental route where he deals with the demons of his war crimes, an often solitary confinement, the effective loss of his family, and the need to keep his mind alive.

Spandau Prison, Berlin

The Spandau Diaries reveal much about Hitler and his maniacal actions but it can also be read as a book about a man’s journey as he confirms his guilt while exploring its almost limitless depths.  Speer comes across as complicit, remorseful and even decent.  It’s a book worth reading because it is so morally complex and at times ambiguous, just like the characters that inhabit it.

Speer once said that the only kind of loyalty that matters is our loyalty to morality.

I guess he would have known.

 

Sources:  The Dairies, Wiki, Keegan’s The Second World War, La Quinta Historical Backgrounder

 

 

Posted by on August 26, 2012 • Filed under: History, Travel, Values and Ethics, War and Peace

A Titanic Moment

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This coming Sunday, April 15th, marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Titanic, an event which captures the collective imagination as few others do.

The facts are simple enough: big ship hits ice, 1,500 die, but they fail to explain our endless fascination with the event.  The sinking of the Titanic may rival any occurrence in American history for its sheer staying power in the public consciousness.  Thanks first to intense news coverage, a steady stream of books and then to the introduction of film, new generations are introduced to the sinking and the captivation begins anew.  The question is why?

Calamity may be irresistibly enthralling but the Titanic is an odd example as it occurred out-of-sight of all but those immediately present, many of whom died.  Our mental image of the huge ship, down by the bow, arcing into the air and splitting in half, is entirely a work of our collective imagination.  It exists only in our mind’s eye yet is as memorable as the Challenger or Hindenburg explosions, or even 9/11.

The story of the Titanic is romantic — not as  in “let’s fall in love”  – but as in “marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized” (Websters).  In fact, it is “all of the above.”  The villain, a cool character, is a million-ton block of ice that waylays the liner and disappears though it is quickly replaced in word and film by the hapless captain and the various male cads who force their way onto the too few lifeboats as women and children perish in the frigid water.  Every great story needs a villain, or possibly two.

Luxury liners are famously microcosms of the world we live in thoughtfully arrayed in layers with the (materially) most fortunate on top, and where lower decks are populated by the masses more focused on the destination than the journey.  Many were fleeing a continent preening for war,  escaping to a safe place to start a new life or to join those who had gone before.  In a “perfect” tragedy they were struck down, just over the horizon from the realization of their dreams and their loved ones.

Perhaps the Titanic reminds us all, first class or steerage, that our faulty collective notions of a placid and safe passage are subject to the whims of nature and the foibles of the human spirit.

 

Posted by on April 12, 2012 • Filed under: History, Travel

A Word is Born

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Dude, you are so Schettinoed.

Ask any “hoodyed-up” , skateboarding twenty-something all the way up to a 95-year-old triathlete who is the last person off a ship and they will universally exclaim, “Why, the captain, of course!”

Apparently not so, in what now passes for the Italian Navy.  Last week as the Costa Concordia cruise ship listed to starboard after striking what the New York Times referred to as  a “rocklike object” [Just what is a rocklike object, anyway?] the captain, one Francesco Schettino, found himself firmly ensconced in a lifeboat while as many as 300 passengers were still on board the crippled ship, scrambling to safety.

It is stories such as this that give rise to the decades old and derisive joke about the title of the shortest book ever written.  Answer: The book of Italian War Heroes.  Ouch.

The only bright spot to emerge thus far is the recorded voice of a Captain De Falco of the Coast Guard telling the ship’s captain, in no uncertain terms, to shinny his Schettino back up the rope ladder hanging from the bow and to take command of the evacuation, to which he whined about the list of the ship and the fact that it was dark outside.  Stern stuff, indeed.

As if from the plot of a Joseph Conrad novel, the ship never sank.  It came to rest with virtually all of the upper deck well above the waterline, thus making Schettino’s early departure all the more ignominious.

This morning’s press accounts reveal the real reason the captain was in a lifeboat instead of on board and in command: he tripped and fell into a lifeboat. Right.

What a Schettino-head.

 

Photo credit:  AP/NYT

 

Posted by on January 18, 2012 • Filed under: Emergency Communications, Major Incidents, Rescues, Travel

Road Trip: M&Ms

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A rainy and foggy Tuesday of Thanksgiving week was the perfect reason for a road trip south to check out some very valuable real estate and to hear history in the (re) making.

Many will know that Virginians dominated the early years of America and you can, over the course of a longish day, visit the home places of any number of presidents.  Yesterday we popped in to see  world-famous Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson and Montpelier, the estate of James and Dolley Madison.  They are a study in contrasts as currently presented.

Monticello was seriously socked in by heavy fog so no stunning view of the Blue Ridge, but don’t despair since the lack of an exterior distraction makes the building and its interior, the center of the visual universe.

Were you just to visit Monticello you would, of course, be captivated by the architectural accomplishments and the collection of objects that Jefferson used both for inspiration and instruction.  Jefferson famously surrounded himself with books (and wine.)  We had a fine guide who worked in several stories of life in the Jefferson house with a man who, over 40 years, was constantly tearing up and rebuilding the place, leaving the entire roof exposed over the winter and placing loose boards down as flooring so that occupants would fall into the basement.  It’s a nice house but one leaves unsure if it was worth all the bother.

They have a rather new visitor center that is “Arts and Crafts meets Aspen Ski Lodge” which will have you looking for the hot tub and the chair lift.  See the film at the theatre–it’s worth the time.  It is frank about Jefferson’s philosophical underpinnings, his literary achievements, his moral failings around slavery and his relationship with Sally Hemings.  Great men are complex and rife with human realness that we love to obscure as we seek to make them ever greater.

Oh, and let’s not forget lunch.  Michie Tavern is five minutes from Monticello.  I’m from West Virginia so my eyes lit up upon learning that it was a buffet with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, cole slaw, hot biscuits, and for dessert, peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream.  Need we say more?

And then off to Montpelier, the lifetime home of James Madison and his effervescent wife and first lady, Dolley.  Montpelier is just about 30 miles northeast of Monticello but architecturally, more like a thousand, with an amusing history of its own.

Montpelier was purchased by the DuPont family decades ago and the 6,000 sq ft “original” structure was doubled in size to 12,000 and coated with pink stucco.  (Money does not guarantee taste.)  The property was willed back to a foundation and the last many years have seen the de-construction of the contemporary “improvements” to once again reveal a  structure which is thought to be 85% original.

The house during much of James Madison’s life was actually a duplex where his parents lived on one side and he and Dolley lived on the other.  There was no interior connection so visiting the in-laws meant going out on the veranda and knocking on their door.  Brilliant.

The renovation, mostly completed just a few years ago, cost millions and the result is amazing.  The interior is a series of cozy and comfy rooms that are rather sparsely furnished at this stage.  Like the Lincoln Cottage in Washington, DC, the lack of interior furnishings and art somehow lends to the sense of the  greatness of the place.  And, for those fascinated by the elements of “Golden Era” building construction, they have a room upstairs which exposes walls and floors in order to see the building’s sturdy bones.

Alas, we were regaled with the story of James Madison as the very center and hero of the US Constitutional universe where George Mason and John Jay are no where in sight.  We were told that Madison loved to invite guests to dinner so he could indoctrinate them with his opinions and beliefs.  I now know how they must have felt, though I left a bit hungry.

A day of history and two great buildings not be missed.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Posted by on November 23, 2011 • Filed under: Travel