Washington DC - First Truly Solo Vacation - NYC - Bermuda - DC - October 18

It's another day in DC and the weather has warmed up a bit making it just perfect to be out wandering.  I started my morning with 10:15 a.m. timed tickets to the permanent exhibits at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The last time I visited this museum, I was in middle school, just a year or two after it had opened so I figured it was time for a return visit.  

It is a really well done museum with so much information.  Given our current political climate and what has happened around the world even in recent years (there was a good exhibit on Burma's genocide as recent as 2017), I think it is a really important time period for us to try to understand.  History has a tendency to repeat itself and education is our best tool against stopping future atrocities.  Below are photos  of just a few pieces that stuck with me - the museum itself has so much more.

An exhibit on the US response which really failed in providing refuge for fleeing Jews and was pretty slow to respond

Lodz ghetto hospital door - ghettos were where Jews were first sent before they started making use of work, concentration, and then death camps.  Ghettos were usually overcrowded and unsanitary.

A railway car that was often packed with as many as 100 victims when they were deported to death camps

Bunks from the barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau - at times each level held up to 6 people.

A casting of a gas chamber door at the Majdanek concentration camp

Each victim was given a number which replaced their name

The Danish tried to protect their Jews.  Once they could no longer resist Nazi pressure to persecute them, they launched a nationwide effort to smuggle Jews by boat to Sweden, a neutral country.  Each boat carried 12-14 Jewish refugees.

After the war, they made a memorial from pieces of tombstones they unearthed in the Remu synagogue's cemetery in Craco, Poland.  During the war, this cemetery was used as a site for mass executions.  Shown here is a casting of that memorial wall.

After exploring the museum, I found some lunch at the museum cafe and then walked towards the Mall to find a bench to enjoy a little sunshine.  It was in the upper 60s and not a cloud in sight by this point.  I had noticed on the sign to the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden that they offered a guided tour at 2:00 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays so a little before two, I made my way to the Pavilion where the tour was set to start.  It was such a great tour with a knowledgable docent from the National Gallery of Art.  Afterwards, I hung around the Sculpture Garden a bit more to take some more photos and write.  Art can be such a great inspiration.

"Graft" by Roxy Paine

"Untitled" by Christopher Wool

"Thinker on a Rock, 1997" by Barry Flanagan

Eventually, I decided to make my way back to the hotel with a plan to use the rest of my food and beverage credit at the rooftop bar to celebrate my trip coming to a close.  I still have a little more time to explore tomorrow because my train doesn't leave until 6:30 p.m. but tonight is my last night in DC.

Caribbean Rose

Fried Calamari

And then I called it a night.