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Dorothy Copus Brush Holocaust museum made big impression Last January Pam Stubbs and Joyce Yeager were
invited to take part in a small group workshop in Washington,
DC. The subject of the four-day session was "Lessons From
the Holocaust." The two educators are with the Cumberland
County Adult Education Department but before that they both taught
at South Cumberland Elementary School. As teachers of youngsters
they learned to be prepared for the unexpected daily, but their
Washington experience was above and beyond their days in the
classroom. They agreed, "It was four days of intense concentration
and it was emotionally draining." The first workshop covered background information
to prepare them for their private tour of the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum. Dedicated to presenting the history of the persecution
and murder of 6 million Jews and millions of other victims of
Nazi tyranny from 1933 to 1945, the museum was chartered by a
unanimous act of Congress in 1980. The structure was built to resemble a war
factory where so many from the concentration camps were forced
to work before they were exterminated. It is located adjacent
to the National Mall and was opened to the public in April 1993,
on the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Entering the museum the visitor chooses a
small brochure with a picture and a brief biographical sketch
of that person who was sent to a concentration camp. At the end
of the tour the fate of that person is revealed. Visitors move
through the different phases of that long nightmare. One of the
first artifacts on view is a very early huge computer which the
Nazis used to record the name of every person taken to camps. Visitors walk up an open stairway that widens
as it nears the third floor. Surrounding the stairs all the way
to the top are pictures of people from one town who perished.
A survivor returned to her town after the war to preserve the
faces of all those lost souls. Yeager explained, "Everything
has a symbolic meaning," and she told how the third and
top floor of the museum gives the impression the museum is twisting. There is one of the cattle cars that carried
victims to their fate and the Danish boat which heroically saved
a number from that fate. The bunk beds they slept in and a model
of the crematorium are displayed. All along the tour path are
television monitors with survivors telling their very personal
stories. Two areas bring forth deep emotion. One is
shoes, from the smallest to the largest, piled high. The other
is a huge heap of eye glasses. After the crematorium the bodies
were desecrated by removing any gold fillings from their teeth
and then their bodies were cut open to search for any jewels
or valuables they may have swallowed in an attempt to save. The three-hour tour ends in the Memorial Room
where an eternal candle burns. Ashes of many victims have been
buried under this room. In the quiet of this expansive room visitors
can reflect on the horrors they have seen and the stories they
have heard from survivors of the Holocaust. Inscribed above the
eternal flame are words to remember: "Only guard yourself and guard your soul
carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes saw and lest
these things depart your heart all the days of your life. And
you shall make them known to your children and to your children's
children." Any school group, churches or organizations
interested in a presentation from the women should contact them
at 484-5446. As Stubbs and Yeager departed the museum through
the backdoor in the distance they saw another symbol much different
from the ones they had been seeing. Towering above the mall was the gleaming Washington Monument. |