On 8/23/2015 11:44 AM, Nathan Wajsman wrote:
We were there just one day (no overnight), so it is a small gallery of just 30
pictures, mainly from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Lincoln,
Washington and Vietnam memorials, a couple of extras. In many ways standard
visitor stuff but still, I hope you will find something to like. I particularly
enjoyed seeing in the Lincoln Memorial the cover image of my 8th grade US
history textbook, from 1975 in Denmark:
http://www.frozenlight.eu/washington2015/
The memorials are interesting to me, although I may never visit them.
Neither affects me directly, with no Jewish heritage after the second century, and, unusually, I guess, no family or
friends at the time even involved in Vietnam, let alone killed or injured.
I mostly understand the power and meaning of the Vietnam Memorial to the Country, although I can't pretend to feel what
those involved and affected feel, not even close. Nor do I wish to minimize the damage to so many not officially
injured. PTSD seems to flavor the air, sometimes.
Yet the Holocaust Memorial Museum seems to me equally important, and no one has commented on it yet. Further away in
time, no longer in the memory of most living people, yet staggering in scale. There are just over 58,000 names on the
Vietnam Memorial. About six million Jews died in the Nazi attempt at "ethnic cleansing". About five million non-Jews
died at Nazi hands in organized exterminations, as well.
I wonder if there may not be as many or more US citizens who lost family in that catastrophe than in Vietnam.
Considering the number of relatively recent immigrants in the US at the time of WWII, it seems likely that many, many of
them had family among the eleven million who died outside of battle as civilian victims of vicious Nazi pogroms.
Around 750,000 American service people died in WWII, and millions more suffered, mostly silently, from what we now call
PTSD in their post war lives.
Each generation seems to have its share of casualties ...
Blessing on All Victims Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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