Have you visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC?

I think it’s to help you get emotionally invested. Why do you think it’s insensitive? To whom?

Agree with @KNOWITALL.

I don’t find it tasteless at all. I’m not sure why it would be.

I think it would be a way to be more connected. I would find it extremely interesting. Not tasteless at all.

I went to Holocaust Museum about 15 years ago, and really loved the whole character thing. I liked that museum a lot.

I also liked the Postal Museum – a cozy little museum but fun and do-able.

I have not been to the one in D.C., but I have been to the Museum of Tolerance in California. I still remember the card that I received during my visit: a young boy, maybe eight or nine, who was subjected to medical tests that led to his death in the concentration camp. The visit had a profound impact on me and I cried on the ride home.

It made me connect on a deeper personal level to walk through the museum imagining that I was holding the hand of that little boy.

Insensitive and tasteless? I found it emotionally affective (and effective), humanizing, and impactful. Very powerful.

The reason the Titanic exhibit did that, was because that personal connection was so compelling at the Holocaust museum.
I have been to both (the Holocaust museum twice). I found them both fascinating, and while they could both be successful without the cheap gimmicks, they both were wonderful experiences.

It moved me to get that name also.

Even more moving for me was my son went this summer and was able to look up a friend’s dad. He survived the camps as a young man, seeing the official records of his being in one camp and then moved, from Auschwitz to Dachau, was like looking at a timeline of one man’s hell.

I think it’s a pretty cool thing to do. Why would that be insensitive?

I thought it was effective. Great idea.

I’ve been to the Holocaust museum in DC and I thought receiving the card (I remember it as a book, like a passport, but maybe my memory is mixed up) was fantastic. I thought the prop was very creative. Getting into the elevator to go up at the beginning of the museum after receiving the card; rather than starting at the bottom and walking up each floor; was like getting into a car (train car) to be taken away. Very effective in my opinion.

@rockfan When you walk through a museum like that do you think about what it would have been like to experience what happened? Imagine yourself in that time and place? Or, do you just see it like a movie, like something to watch or see as an observer? Regardless of the card, I mean in general when you learn about a time in history, do you identify with it? If you had been Jewish in Nazi Germany or if you had been on the titanic. Or, even if you think about it in modern day, if you were on a cruiseship now or if your government started to turn on its own citizens.

I agree that getting that card attached you somehow to that person. Very similar to the experience of having a bracelet for POWs during the Vietnam War. I will never forget my POW guy: King Rayford, Junior. I have to admit, I forgot my Holocaust person but likely because I tried to read all of the cards available.

@Sueanne_Tremendous I don’t remember my Holocaust museum person either, but because really I experienced it more as myself.

Wow. Now I really want to go!
Anybody know how far DC is from Albany, NY?

@Katniss Driving probably about 6.5 hours. Train probably 5–6 hours. Flying less than an hour. Train is probably the easiest. The train lets you out right in DC and you can use the subway/metro from the train station to other parts of the city. And, cabs of course. If you fly into National Airport (now called Ronald Reagan, which pisses me off, airport letters DCA) the metro goes to that airport also.

@JLeslie Thank you! I’m going to have to talk the fiancé into going. He’s such a homebody. lol
It’s not too terribly far, so I think I can probably get my way on this one.

There is lots more to see in DC than just the holocaust museum. If you are going with someone driving is probably the least expensive way. You can stay in the suburbs and take the metro into the city to save some money possibly, if money is a consideration. But, sometimes amtrak and the flights have good deals.

We’ve visited the Holocaust Museum in DC, the Museum of Tolerance in LA, and two different Titanic exhibits in Florida. All very moving, and unforgettable. At no time did trying to identify with an actual person who was there seem exploitive or disrespectful to us.

What affected me most about the Holocaust Museum were the displays of children’s clothing and toys which were recovered from the Death Camps.

And @JLeslie, you are right, there are so many unforgettable things to do and see in DC that everyone should go there at least once. We flew up, took a bus to our hotel, then just used the Metro and that cool trolley service for five days to see Arlington Cemetery, The White House, The U.S. Capitol Building, and as many things in the Mall area as possible.

Fantastic (and we’re going back in December)....

I grew up there.

It amazed me that during our five days there, every single local citizen that we met (on the Metro, or on the street, sometimes very far from the Mall area) was friendly, helpful, and very respectful.

During our last day, I kept thinking “Oh, come on….somebody in this town has got to exhibit jackass behavior at least once while we’re here”....but nobody ever did.

Maybe we were just lucky….but I’ll take it…..and how we’ll always remember it….

@OneBadApple That’s nice to hear. Funny, when people talk about the friendliness or helpfulness of a city I usually say that I think NYC is more helpful and more congenial than DC. Both are typical big cities though. As long as someone isn’t in a rush, they are usually happy to help with directions or a recommendation. December will be cold, why December? For Christmas? Late March early April is cherry blossom time and the trees are amazing. The weather can be weird though and sometimes they bloom early or late.

@JLeslie Yeah, we are originally from the NYC area and have lived in the city itself at various times. Over the years, business colleagues who have visited NYC for the first time have told me they were amazed at how cool and helpful that so many New Yorkers can be. Their rep is being pretty “direct”, and that’s true. But as long as people in NYC see that you aren’t trying to play some kind of angle, they will almost always have your back.

Family in Reston, VA invited us for Christmas, so we thought we’d go up a little early and see a few things in DC which were closed for renovation during our last visit.

Of course, the gov’t shutdown might screw that up for us, but we’ll see…..

The shut down won’t last that long. Plus, not everything in Washington is run by the government. Well, almost everything is. :).

The last time, we were walking into the WW II Veterans Memorial and noticed a guy having his photo taken with a few people. I thought “Wow, that guy looks just like Bob Dole”.

Well, duh. That’s because he WAS Bob Dole.

HA HA

Goodnight, JLeslie…..

No, I haven’t, but I have a huge interest in the Holocaust, so I wanna make my parents take us back to Washington D.C. so I can visit it. I guess in a way it can be seen as insensitive… I think it’s so you can connect with it more.