Post Date: 2011-12-01
Part two of the DC adventure is below!
Ryan and I had an easier day after the VERY BUSY first few days and tons of walking. We went to the DAR museum and the Holocaust Museum. Another day we went to the Library of Congress, Museum of Natural History, Air and Space Museum, Capitol building, and Bureau of Printing and Engraving. The Bureau of Printing and Engraving tour was very neat. They would not let us take any pictures so if you are ever in DC you should check it out. The tour is free and it takes about 30-45 minutes. It was very neat to see how the government makes our paper currency and the entire process it goes through, what happens when there is a miss print, and just the procedures the employees have to go through. I bet there are all kinds of background and security checks one has to go through to get a job there!!
Below: Our first stop of the day was at the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) building. I am actually a DAR member. My Grandma traced our lineage back and found we had an ancestor who was a Patriot of the American Revolution. I encourage each of you to check out http://www.dar.org/natsociety/whoweare.cfm to learn more about DAR and their mission.
Our ancestor my Grandma traced back to is Thomas Prather. He was born in 1703, and passed in July 1785.
Below: Outside the building... it was beautiful! This building encompasses an entire city block. DAR Headquarters is one of the world's largest buildings of its kind and is owned and maintained exclusively by women. More information on the National Headquarters can be found at: http://www.dar.org/natsociety/headquarters.cfm.
Below: The next two pictures is an overview of the DAR library. It is a beautiful site. Many thousands of volumes of genealogical compilations, record abstracts, and other materials are available only at the DAR Library.
Below: At the DAR building there are many "period rooms." Each of the period rooms are sponsored by a different state organization of NSDAR, and reflect a wide range of time and place. The next few pictures are of the Oklahoma room.The description below was taken from the DAR website.
The Oklahoma room, designed as a kitchen, displays domestic furnishings from the late 18th and 19th centuries. The room reflects the colonial revival view of an early kitchen dominated by a large central hearth. A variety of household tasks, including cooking, baking, textile production, laundry, food preservation, and dairy production, is represented by an array of kitchen objects.
To view a virtual tour of Oklahoma, and all the rooms go to http://www.dar.org/omni/virtualtours/museum/index.html.
Below: The small box towards the bottom of the picture is a mechanical mousetrap.
Below: Thanks Ryan for taking my picture! Touring the DAR building and seeing the history that has been compiled and stored at that building is truly amazing. Thank you Grandma for all of your hard work in tracing our family. I appreciate the information... but more importantly I appreciate and love you!
Below: Our next stop was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. If you are ever in DC you must take the time to visit this museum. Their website (http://www.ushmm.org/) says it will take you about 2 hours... however, it took Ryan and I 4 hours to get through the museum. Words can't even begin to describe the hate that took place... just so hard to understand. What amazed me even more, is that Hitler was able to convince so many people to hate.Pictures were not allowed in the museum but I found some that were in the museum.
Below: The man behind the hate. The Holocaust history at the museum is told literally from beginning to end, and no detail was left out.
Below: There was a room in the museum that was just pictures of survivors and their tattoos.
Below: This picture includes volunteers at the museum, but it also includes many survivor volunteers. Ryan and I did not realize there were survivor volunteers until after we left the museum. Later, Ryan and I realized that the woman who escorted us in the elevator to the museum was a survivor. Wow, what an impact it makes when you are going through the museum and are witnessing what these survivors endured. One part of the museum particularly touched me. There was a survivor room that played audios of survivors telling their stories. Check out the Holocaust website above to hear their stories.
Below: Jews were marked with a yellow star; a perversion of the Jewish Star of David symbol.
Below: The man behind the hate. The Holocaust history at the museum is told literally from beginning to end, and no detail was left out.
Below: There was a room in the museum that was just pictures of survivors and their tattoos.
Below: This picture includes volunteers at the museum, but it also includes many survivor volunteers. Ryan and I did not realize there were survivor volunteers until after we left the museum. Later, Ryan and I realized that the woman who escorted us in the elevator to the museum was a survivor. Wow, what an impact it makes when you are going through the museum and are witnessing what these survivors endured. One part of the museum particularly touched me. There was a survivor room that played audios of survivors telling their stories. Check out the Holocaust website above to hear their stories.
Below: Jews were marked with a yellow star; a perversion of the Jewish Star of David symbol.Others included: Criminals were marked with green inverted triangles, political prisoners with red with black -- or in the case of Roma in some camps brown triangles, Homosexuals were identified with pink triangles and Jehovah's Witnesses with purple ones.
Below: This group of people just arrived at a camp, and were sent directly to the gas chamber.
Below: A picture of one of the gas chambers. The guards would pack people in as tight as they could.
Below: One room at the museum was just filled with shoes. Shoes from men, women, and children. Many of these were collected when prisoners were dropped off by trains at the camps. The guards would unload the prisoners, strip them of their clothes, shoes, and other personal items, and send them to gas chambers. As you walk through this room filled with their real shoes, there is a musky smell. Shoes are piled high; layer after layer. All sizes of shoes. A very real moment in the museum... when reality hits you of everything you had previously witnessed thus far in the museum.
Below: Men, women, and children prisoners were sent to doctors who did experiments on them. Painful, excruciating experiments.
Below: Men who appeared in good health and were strong were spared death and ordered to work. They were literally worked nearly to death... if not to death. When they became to weak to work they were killed.
Below: One of the audios of a female survivor talked about role call. Every morning all of the prisoners lined up for role call. Sometimes they stood for hours... they stood until every prisoner was accounted for.
Below: Death marches occurred when prisoners moved to a different camp. Some marches occurred in the winter months where prisoners had little clothing and no shoes. If prisoners were lagging behind they were killed. More information on death marches can be found at: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005162
Below: Prisoners of Mauthausen welcome a U.S. tank on May 6, 1945, the day after the camp was liberated. 122,000 people died at Mauthausen.
Below: This group of people just arrived at a camp, and were sent directly to the gas chamber.
Below: A picture of one of the gas chambers. The guards would pack people in as tight as they could.
Below: One room at the museum was just filled with shoes. Shoes from men, women, and children. Many of these were collected when prisoners were dropped off by trains at the camps. The guards would unload the prisoners, strip them of their clothes, shoes, and other personal items, and send them to gas chambers. As you walk through this room filled with their real shoes, there is a musky smell. Shoes are piled high; layer after layer. All sizes of shoes. A very real moment in the museum... when reality hits you of everything you had previously witnessed thus far in the museum.
Below: Men, women, and children prisoners were sent to doctors who did experiments on them. Painful, excruciating experiments.
Below: Men who appeared in good health and were strong were spared death and ordered to work. They were literally worked nearly to death... if not to death. When they became to weak to work they were killed.
Below: One of the audios of a female survivor talked about role call. Every morning all of the prisoners lined up for role call. Sometimes they stood for hours... they stood until every prisoner was accounted for.
Below: Death marches occurred when prisoners moved to a different camp. Some marches occurred in the winter months where prisoners had little clothing and no shoes. If prisoners were lagging behind they were killed. More information on death marches can be found at: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005162
Below: Prisoners of Mauthausen welcome a U.S. tank on May 6, 1945, the day after the camp was liberated. 122,000 people died at Mauthausen. These pictures give you a very small glimpse of the Holocaust. I encourage you to visit the museum if you are ever in DC, or visit their in-depth website listed earlier in the blog.
Below: While in DC, we also made a trip through the National Air and Space Museum. Most of us were taught (until recently) that Pluto was a planet. I have been in denial... and then I saw it! The museum has removed Pluto from the planets list!!! I almost had a breakdown in the middle of the museum. J/K
Below: The reason Pluto is no longer believed to be a planet.
Below: A model of the Wright Brother's airplane was there. Very cool.
Below: Some planes.
Below: I thought the money box on our way out was neat. So many different currencies.
Below: Then we walked to the Capitol. This place is gorgeous!!
Below: Ryan in front of the Capitol.
Below: It was a perfect day.
Below: Ryan and I do not remember what this building is. We think it was a random picture taken on one of our many miles walked during this vacation.
Below: The inside of the Library of Congress is gorgeous!!
Below: I just love how there is wildlife everywhere. Just some birds taking a bath.
Below: Onto the Museum of Natural History. I was just trying be one with the elephant.
Below: I just love turtles.
Below: Did you know...
Below: I told Ryan that little kids would have nightmares after coming to this museum.
Below: Ryan was bound and determined to find a camel... and we finally did!! Hopefully this will help inspire Ryan to produce another worthy drawing for the refrigerator.
Below: Being one with the turtle!
The final leg of our trip is next!Until Next Time
Ju
