Holocaust Museum

A weekend ago my friend Jaynell came down to visit for the night.  We headed to Liberty Tavern for dinner on Friday, which was fantastic!  They have great food, and even had a special menu marked with what foods are dairy-free.  Made me feel so happy!  Their risotto was great, even without the cheese.

Saturday we headed downtown to the Holocaust Museum after breakfast.  It was great cause we took our time going through the museum, which they've done a great job creating.  If we could get funding, I would love to take my kids there.

The most special part was when we were on the third floor by the boxcar.  There was a little old lady standing with a group of people our age and I didn't really think anything of it, so I walked past.  After a while I realized that they had moved as a group into the boxcar and she was talking so I went over listen.  Turns out she (and I don't know her name) was from Hungary and ended up in a boxcar with her family headed to Auschwitz.  She told how she was crowded in the boxcar and when they stopped her parents were relieved because when the doors opened they saw a camp, which meant that they weren't going to be shot in the woods.  They were told to leave everything so her mother made them put on all of their clothes, which possibly saved her life.  Out in line her mother and little brothers were sent one way, her older sister was sent the other way and when she and her younger sister arrived at the officer, she was sent to follow her older sister because she looked older than her 13 years because of the clothes, but her little sister was sent to follow her mom and brothers.  She paused to make sure that her sister caught up to her mother and then went to follow her sister into the camp.  The survivor then walked through the boxcar and stood in front of a huge picture that had been blown up on the wall of a line going into Auschwitz and pointed to a girl in the picture.  "That's me."  Because she had paused, she ended up in the photo that she didn't know was being taken.  She didn't see the picture for years until after the war.  She said her father and older brother were in the line of men, but didn't know where.  She never saw her father or brother again, nor her mother and younger brothers, who were sent straight to the gas chambers.  It was really moving to hear her story, especially when we were in the museum and it's sad to think that the last survivors are getting older and they won't be around much longer.

Make sure you hear the story of a survivor sometime soon before they are all gone.