The Holocaust Memorial Museum: Some Connection Required

After a visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, I came out feeling that I was missing something essential: a human connection.

A few weeks ago, I went to DC on a field trip for my Master’s program. One of the focal points of the trip was the Holocaust Memorial Museum. We had spent one class talking about articles and books about the museum and learning its history so that we would be prepared to study the museum as museum professionals. Quite frankly, I was not looking forward to this part of our trip to begin with, and the reading did not make me any more optimistic.

I am sorry to say that my expectations were realized.

Perhaps one of the problems was the crowds. We got there about ten minutes before the museum opened and there was already a line halfway around the block. Add the school groups to the tourists, and the crowds grew to the point of claustrophobia. This was only exacerbated by the way the museum was designed. The first exhibit space is a long narrow hallway with exhibits on both sides. It created a bottleneck and endless frustration as people stopped to look at exhibits and held up everyone behind them. Maybe I would have had a different experience if I had gone on a day with fewer people, and, if you go, I encourage you to find an off day.

But even the removal of the crowds could not have fixed what I found to be the fundamental problem with the museum: a lack of humanity.

For a museum completely about a people’s erasure of identity, it did a very poor job establishing that identity in the first place. Visitors are taken up an elevator and dumped into Hitler’s rise to power. There is no celebration of Jewish life before the war, no way to connect to these people as people. Without that visceral connection to the victims of the Holocaust, the museum becomes a horror show, or, if you can get past the horrors, a history lesson.

There were only three places in the entire museum that I felt something like that connection. The first was the Tower of Faces, photographs from the Eishishok Shetl (the name for a Jewish village). The exhibit lines a three story tower, looking like an album plastered to the walls, and ends with a startling message: Today, there are no Jews in Eishishok.

The second place was on the two glass bridges over the main hall. The first is etched with the first names of people who died in the Holocaust while the second is etched with the names of villages that were destroyed by the Holocaust. These are easy to connect to: “That could be my name up there,” or maybe “My name is up there” and “That could be my town on this wall.”

Finally, the Identity Cards. Visitors receive a card when they enter the museum, picking from piles sorted into Male and Female. It tells the story of the person in the card as you move through the museum. The cards are often criticized because they wind up in the trash as soon as the visitor leaves the museum, but for me, the card was where I connected most; I spent most of my time in the museum wondering if the person whose life I held in my hand had survived and her presence became a constant companion through the museum.

If you get the chance, go to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Everyone should go once. But bring the personal connections with you. Learn about these people before you go. Maybe then, you won’t get wrapped up in the horrors, but rather the loss—of people, of culture, of serenity. And then you can walk out of the museum feeling the truth of their motto: Never Again.

Share Spotlight: Do You Ever Feel Like Wonder Woman?

 From When You Work At a Museum:
The opening reception for the new exhibition starts in 10 minutes, you’re wearing a dress and high heels, and you have to climb a 16 ft. ladder to rehang an installation. What do you do?

 As an "emerging museum professional" (at least that's what they called me at the conference I went to a few weeks ago) I am still learning the ins and outs of the field. For me, one of the big ones has been professional dress. In Texas, nice blue jeans and a pretty blouse are considered "business casual." Not so in New York (or anywhere else, for that matter), and so I have to sympathize with the occasional absurdity of women's fancy wear.

But! Every once in a while, you do get to feel like Wonder Woman.

I am distinctly reminded of a quote I once saw:
"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels."

What do you think? When have you felt like Wonder Woman lately?
Bonus points if the story involves fancy dress. :)

Share Spotlight: Surprised in Rome: Bravo Palazzo Massimo!

I've really gotten interested in blogs recently and currently follow 17 blogs of various types, from fashion and lifestyle to Catholic to comics to museums to Spanish language. I've got some wide interests. :) But I thought that it would be neat if I picked a post each week to highlight. I'll start with a link to the blog post, then tell you what I think of it.


 This week's share spotlight comes from The Uncataloged Museum.

Surprised in Rome: Bravo Palazzo Massimo!

I love museums (obviously, I'm in a Museum Studies Program) and I love to travel, but the two don't always come together as often as I'd like. This post was a vicarious way for me to travel to Italy, but was also a bit more than that.

As a budding museum professional, how a museum is presented to the public is incredibly important. As museums have shifted to an educational focus, the public becomes the primary audience, and if they aren't getting anything out of the museum, the museum isn't doing its job.

Imagine my surprise to read that Italy, the Mecca for art museum lovers, was so poorly interpreted! But Linda Norris, the author of The Uncataloged Museum blog, has found a gem. Palazzo Massimo sounds like a wonderful visit, whether you are a museum professional or not.

What do you think? If you've been abroad, how do foreign museums differ from American museums in interpretation? What about museums in the US? What museum have you been to that struck you as a gem?

Senior Thesis

How can I have more than 35 pages of combined writing, outlines, and sources and still feel as if I might not make my draft deadline next week?

Welcome to senior thesis.

Whereas the rest of the country is on Spring Break, I have just retreated into the Thesis Hermitage, where all I do is research, write, and edit. Why? Because, to quote the dean of my college, “Your Spring Break will suck and mine won’t.”

Want to know what writing a thesis is like? Check out this Tumblr. It’s pretty darn accurate.

My thesis is on a topic near and dear to my heart: how the museum experience is affected by the physical structure of a museum. And now you see the problem inherent in theses. They are, by and large, boring to the majority of the population. Which means that roommates, classmates, and random strangers all begin to get glassy eyes after about 2 minutes of conversation on a thesis topic. Theses are long, in depth, well researched bodies of literature. At least they are for liberal arts majors. Other disciplines have creative theses that take other forms, but for me and most of the people I know, it comes as a long, long, paper. 40 pages is pretty average. And that’s just the writing, not the sources, miscellaneous direction pages, or figures, tables, and graphs. It’s a lot. And it will tear you down and remake you.

Thesis writing goes something like this:

1. You begin in the excited stage where you love your topic and are convinced that everything that you write is amazing.

2. Then you calm yourself into the working stage where you know that what you write is going to need editing, but is still basically good (this is the ideal stage).

3. Next, you find yourself falling into the pessimistic stage where you are writing because you know you need to, but you’re sure you’re going to have to scrap just about everything and write it over.

4. This is followed by the denial stage where you don’t know why you are writing a thesis because obviously you don’t know how to write and this topic is stupid anyway (this is the bottom of the barrel).

5. At the bottom of the barrel is the pity stage where you know that, despite hating your topic and your thesis, you know you’ll still have to write it (this stage often involves tears).

6. Then begins the upswing stage where you start to talk to someone about your topic and get animated again because you remember why you chose this topic in the first place (this stage often involves a breakthrough overcoming a major brain block).

7. Which brings us back to the excited stage where you remember why you wanted to write a thesis in the first place, and begins the cycle all over again.

The run time of this cycle varies from person to person, but I’ve found I tend to run about a week and half. Which means I have one weekend of serious work where I get tons done and then a week where I can’t hardly get anything done because my topic doesn’t even really make sense to me anymore.

It’s vicious and not for the faint of heart.

However, should you attempt it, here is some advice my advisor gave me that is still the best advice on thesis writing I’ve ever heard: 

“There are two types of theses. Good ones, and finished ones.”

Tour of Duty

Wow. I have had one hell of a week. And not in a good way. I'm good now. For the moment at least. But that's why I threw some plans out the window. But it's okay, because I am in Philadelphia now and thought I would catch up a little.

I started this trip in Washington, D.C., with my Aunt. We had some weirdnesses, but we saw a lot of the Government part of the city.

We started with the National Archives, joking about doing a National Treasure tour. (Oh, that is so going to be a post one of these days. Part I and II forthcoming) They are pretty amazing and definitely work a look, though you won't spend all day, maybe an hour or two.

Then, we headed up toward the East end of the Mall and made a big loop around the Capitol. There is a great photo op on the front lawn. The grass is worn, so it's pretty easy to see where to go. One of these days they should really just put a sidewalk there to save the grass.

Heading around the north side of the Capitol, there is a small brick summerhouse that makes for a cool rest stop if you're doing DC in the summertime (like I did).

On the backside is a better picture and is really just beautiful. But behind the Capitol stands the Supreme Court building. Unfortunately, it was under renovations, so I couldn't take a picture of the front. Inside is worth a look, with a display about the building of the building which is very interesting. The Supreme Court building is much newer than the other large government buildings in D.C. and so there was quite a bit of work involved in making it fit in. There is also a detailed description of the various friezes around the building and who each figure is. That is worth a look if you are at all interested in history, especially government history. Also, don't miss the free standing elliptical staircase, which is unnerving to look at, but oh, so cool. You are allowed to go inside the main court chamber, but only on a lecture tour, which occur every hour or so.

After the Supreme Court, it's just a hop skip and a jump over to the Library of Congress, my main destination for the day. It's incredible. It's so bright! And colorful! I did not want to leave. One of the main attractions, the dome in the reading room is easiest to see if you take a tour. If you don't, you can still see it, but you have to manage to sneak in between tours. You're not allowed to take pictures, and you aren't allowed in the Reading Room unless you have legitimate research. (One of these days...) Also on display while I was there was 100 books which changed America, starting with books such as Common Sense and the Federalist Papers, but also including books such as Cat in the Hat and To Kill a Mockingbird. Beyond that stood Thomas Jefferson's Library. When the original Library of Congress burned to the ground, Thomas Jefferson donated his library to begin it again. Even after another fire reducing the collection by two thirds, Jefferson's library became the backbone of the Library of Congress collections. They have assembled the books from Jefferson's original library, including the many original volumes as well as the same volumes from elsewhere in the collection and markers for books they simply cannot find. It is an incredible display. The books fill numerous shelves in Jefferson's own organizational system. The books are in at least five languages and cover subjects from history to science to philosophy and religion. A Truly Incredible Collection.

There is a tunnel Connecting the Library of Congress and the Capitol building. We took the Capitol tour, which is definitely worth the trip. It's free, but weekdays are better if you can, the weekends can be packed. The tour uses a mic on the guide and headsets with a wireless receiver to ensure everyone can hear. Our tour guide told us right off that we wouldn't need the headsets with him, and he was right. Pictures are allowed everywhere, but don't sit on the floor. It's a sign of protest.

Head out of the Capitol building from the Gift Shop and Visitor Center and head south again for a great photo op. On the corner of the paved area, there is a small offset square with a giant bush between it and the capitol building. On this square is a permanent podium used for press releases. If you are really lucky, it will be set up with microphones for an actual press release, but even not, it is a great place to take a picture with the capitol in the background.

After that we headed down the mall to the Smithsonian, but I'll save that for another post.

"Ask not what your country can do for you - Ask what you can do for your country." --JFK

A Recommendation

Okay, so that didn't quite go as planned. Ah, well, what do you do? Life intervenes.
My summer is... well, honestly, it never really happened. I'm two weeks out from classes starting up again and I've barely had time to breathe this summer. I've had to fight to get the fun in, and that's why this trip to DC is so important to me. I finally have details settled and I'm headed out in the next couple of days.
But crossing things off my packing list made me remember this blog and I'd like to put up one of the posts I'd meant to write on before life sidetracked me.

So, this isn't about travel, per se, well, at least not about physical travel. If you've read some of the previous posts, you might have noticed that I love books. I read more than a librarian, honest to goodness. And I'm omnivorous. Romance, fantasy, women's fiction, epics, paranormal, historical, nonfiction, action, adventure, teen/kids books, science fiction, if it's out there, I'll probably read it (though I'll admit it took me a while to warm up to science fiction). And one of my favorite parts of a book, a well written book, at least, is that it transports you. It takes you somewhere else, to another world, inside another person's head. You can tell when a book wasn't quite done as well as it could have been because you keep find yourself, sometimes rather rudely, back in your world, inside your own head. The best books make you forget that all you hold are some bits of paper with squiggles on them, because all you can see is the story, the action, the romance, the world of the book in front of you.

Because of this, I count books as travel. I read so much (though, admittedly, not so much lately) that I'd like to share the best ones with the nonexistent readers I have. :) (Hi, Mom!)




I love funny books. I think there tends to be enough sadness in our world that we don't need to read about it in our spare time. I'm not saying that we should ignore that there is sadness in the world, only that sometimes we need to be reminded that there is happiness, too.

That's probably why I was a bit reluctant to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I am generally wary of New York Times Bestsellers; too often they are heavy literature about how bad someone's life is. But I am so glad I picked this one up. It is written as a series of letters, telegrams, and journal entries, between a varied cast of characters in post-WWII Britain. The main character, Juliet, wrote a column during the war meant to keep morale up and is finishing up a book tour of the collected columns when the book starts. Her problem now? Her editor (also her best friend's brother) wants another book. So what's a girl to do? Well, through a strange series of events, she winds up in contact with an entire island in the Channel that was occupied during the war, namely, Guernsey.

I laughed at Juliet's (and the entire island's) antics and thoroughly enjoyed this book. It doesn't treat the war lightly, but it does remind you that life goes on. Being American, it is difficult for me to grasp the rebuilding that Britain, and the rest of Europe, went through after WWII. This will give you a picture of what it was like under the occupation and how lines are never as clear as you thought they were.

Alright, recommendation done. If you have some of your own (or, you know, you're actually reading this and just want me to feel less lonely) post in the comments.

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a book, it's too dark to read." --Groucho Marx

A New Adventure

Okay, okay, so I'm not going out of the country. I am however going out of Texas, which sometimes feels like the same thing. I'm also going to be spending a few days by myself in a strange city, and since this blog was started at least partially for my mother's peace of mind, I figured that now would be a good time to resurrect it.

Well, August will be a good time. Middle of August I'm headed out east coast. I've got a graduate college I'm looking at and, since I'll be there anyway, I figured it'd be a good time to take a look around at some sights I've always wanted to see.

I'm being vague, and it's on purpose, I promise.

In other news, I'd really like to use this blog more often, to write a post every here and there. Since coming back from England I've actually managed to keep a journal, so I'd like to post, oh, once a week or so. Not necessarily about my life because, honestly, when I'm not traveling and seeing amazing sights, it's pretty mundane, but about life in general. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a sucker for quotes and bad puns. So I'd like to put some of that up. I'd like to keep this travel related, and I'll do my best. So, places to go, sights to see might be the order of the day. I think I've been enough places to set something up. Right? Right.

So, here's to a blog that will be informative, and hopefully a bit entertaining.

I guess I'll end with a quote. Hey, maybe I could make this a regular thing!

"Blessed are the Curious, for they shall have Adventures." --Lovelle Drachman

P.S. I'll say this now: I'll do my best to find the proper person to attribute each quote to, but it won't always happen. I'm working mostly with the Internet, and you know how that can be. If you think I'm wrong, go ahead and tell me, but please give me a link (or a library book, I'm cool with old fashion) for a source.