The Ladner Archives: Week of 20260712 - 15-hour Drive; Visit with Michael and Mary-Lorraine; Ships; Jamestown; Military Women's Memorial; Arlington National Cemetery; Holocaust Museum; National American History Museum

Week of 20260712 - 15-hour Drive; Visit with Michael and Mary-Lorraine; Ships; Jamestown; Military Women's Memorial; Arlington National Cemetery; Holocaust Museum; National American History Museum

= Sunday at church: We each have value in God's eyes. Don't make things other than God gods in your life. Forgive others, especially in your own home. Minister to others; "Faith without works is dead" [James 2:20]

= We left Montgomery near 1130 and arrived in Warrenton, Virginia about fifteen hours later (Monday morning).

= Monday, we rested.

= Tuesday, we had a good hour with Mary-Lorraine (our oldest daughter) and Michael, her husband, here briefly from Japan to visit his relatives; we caught up with activities we hadn't absorbed through Facebook.

= Wednesday afternoon, we boarded reconstructions of ships that carried settlers to found Jamestown; we also saw representations of a fort and an Indian village, and we browsed a museum until closing time. We used the wheelchair except on the ships. Five hours driving today.

= Thursday, we packed up and drove to Arlington National Cemetery, not quite three hours away. I started off pushing Steph in a wheelchair and we saw the museum inside the Military Women's Memorial that way. We eventually boarded a tram and saw some of the areas that were open today (of more than 600 acres, mostly hilly). We settled into a hotel in Arlington for the balance of our stay.

= Friday was our sixteenth wedding anniversary; we stayed in the hotel except to pick up food.

= Saturday, we took the subway to Washington DC and used the wheelchair today. We visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; as General Eisenhower said: "The things I saw beggar description." Then we went to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (a mix of pop culture; national unity; and inventiveness) and remained there until closing. We took a different subway line back to our vehicle.

We didn't leave a mess.

We were early for church.

Already "packed"

The chair is to make sightseeing easier.

On our way

Heading east

Fountains at Froggy Bottom caught our interest.

The van was indeed packed.

(I don't have to look at the camera to use it.)

Glad that wasn't our traffic

{Caution while overtaking}

We resisted the temptation to visit Buc-ee's on Sunday.

Notice how short these fireworks stores really are behind their tall facade.

Kia

People slide out of the building and return.

Hot springs brought relief but no cure for his polio. - https://gastateparks.org/LittleWhiteHouse

Is this your color?

25 mph on the Interstate

Only to Newnan after two hours of driving from the east side of Montgomery

Rain, 20 minutes later

It didn't last long.

But it kept threatening to, even three hours later.

Love's in North Carolina, after more than eight hours

Warrenton, Virginia. This hotel building managed by a motel won't win any beauty contests, but we're here.

It has a kitchen, but not sufficient seating for a visit. Next time we visit with someone, we'll bring camp chairs.

The place I went for food the next day does have ample seating.

And because it gives you a pager - it makes food fresh - it's used to having people sit for a while. I suggested it as our location for tomorrow's visit.

Its claim to fame is "Nashville style" sandwiches and the use of "smashed" burgers instead of solid patties.

Even people with fancy cars have to eat

This Cruise America RV reminds us that ours was once a Cruise America rental before a Navy Chief bought it.

Fitness room (but the tower at the left is missing parts)

The kitchen in our room has clean dishes in the dishwasher.

We display family photos where we stay.

The TV screen acted as a diffraction grating, splitting white light from a lamp into constituent colors.

Mary-Lorraine and Michael with Steph

The camera timer worked.

Outside our hotel, when Michael saw this on the pavement, he put it on the sidewalk so someone might find it without it being run over. He said doing this is a "Japan" thing.

At the local Walmart, we were surprised to see electronic price tags.

Military commissaries [grocery stores] have used them for many years, but we had not noticed them in Walmart.

You can manually match up part of the UPC with the four digits in the lower-right corner of the price tag to help make sure you're looking at the right price.

Tempting. Steph's chair is uncomfortable, and we could use a couple more good ones.

Yes, I had left the transmission fluid dipstick right in this position the last time I checked it. [ouch] We were blessed not to lose it or to have it fall into the fan.

Back where it belongs. (The manual doesn't even mention that there is a transmission dipstick for this model.)

Workers are preparing to place noise-absorbing panels

Beware of tire shrapnel.

Indoor waterpark with slides that extend outside

Our younger son is named Quinton.

What *does* this person do nightly?

Does the State motto give a hint?

She lived in what is now Virginia.

This is a major route, but it's not an expressway.

Clearing land

We eventually propped the phone up here. (This is fine until you accelerate and it falls into the trash can.)

Nice water, not silted from runoff

The map didn't stay in this position.

A map in pavement, about two car-lengths long, illustrating the voyage to Virginia.

We skipped the museum for the moment and headed straight for the ships.

Steph used her large camera and lenses; her photos are interspersed with those from my small one.

More than a place to rest..

Figures like these would have surrounded a circle for social and religious ceremonies. -- https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1994/vp941115/11150042.htm

The people who were already here when settlers arrived had large dome-shaped homes.

Raised platforms are similar to what we see at Fort Toulouse in Alabama.

Crops

Riverfront Amenities Pavilion

Approaching the ships

Settlers needed supplies and equipment to get started.

This is what the Virginia company planned to provide to its tenants to get established in the new world.

This does not look like enough food to sustain a man for a year, but it's a start.

Aquavitae {water of life} was alcohol. It was often added to water to make the water safe. [I'm guessing this small an amount was likely for medicinal purposes.] https://nauticalarch.org/ship-biscuit-and-salted-beef/aqua-vitae/

We went inside a reproduction of the Godspeed.

Welcoming committee

Sailors originally slept in this forward portion. (This reproduction has a modern toilet there; this ship is seaworthy.)

The aft section had a couple of bunks for the Captain, etc.

This swept portion bulging into the room made space for the rudder (and for modern use, a motor to augment sails).

Not spacious

This is probably our best photo of where the passengers lived, surrounded by cargo.

This ship had a tiller, not a ship's wheel, to steer it.

Bilge pump

Bell for sounding watch, etc.

No soda cans here.

From here, we see the smallest of the three ships. (The largest is Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, being refitted only hours away from where I grew up.)

On deck

Steph at the tiller

Notice the bell.

Breech-loaded gun, an anti-personnel weapon, missing the "mug" that holds the shot and powder

Quite a way up

The ropes are useful.

Vehicles were lined up to use the ferry

A ferry named Pocohantas

It's a ferry: a free ferry. One couple we spoke with made a point of riding several ferries near here.

Taken with Steph's zoom lens

Heading for the smallest of the three ships represented (including the one in Connecticut)

But first, one more look up at this one

The smallest: Discovery

Our welcoming committee

Another breech-loader

We didn't go below in this ship.

Looking back

This shallop, a tender to shuttle cargo and people to and from ships was not towed behind a larger vessel; it was shipped in pieces and assembled at the destination. I was told to "Think Ikea".

A replica of the map that John Smith created

His observations, plotted against a modern map (turned 90 degrees) were accurate.

A worker in period garb

We learned from videos. The odd-looking sail at the bow helped to turn the bow in the desired direction.

Those 39 men in a space perhaps twice the volume of our RV shared that space with the cargo for 144 days.

You kept your compass and cross-staff in this location near the rudder [and in modern times, controls for the engine to supplement the sail when needed].

The bell sounded the time, among other uses.

A reproduction of the largest ship, the Susan Constant, is being refurbished in Connecticut.

Educational and sailing programs are offered.

We also learned from billboards.

Looking at this, I see that we were in the "tween" deck and more cargo would have been stored below.

This backpack was kept on the handles of the wheelchair except when we parked it. The yellow tapes are just to differentiate it from similar backpacks owned by others.

A Portuguese ship headed for Mexico with enslaved Africans from Luganda, Angola, was attacked by English Privateers, who sold them to the Virginia Company. In 1661, slavery in Virginia became a lifelong condition, and by 1662, children of slaves inherited that condition.

[there are no words to describe this brutality: a lifelong inherited condition]

Where food comes from

We passed through the recreation of a triangular fort on our way to the museum.

I did say triangular.

Reshaping a broken sword by hand

Cooking tools

Views of the oven..

Jug..

With a leather lid

This cauldron is larger than it looks in this photo.

A carpentry shop

Armor, when not in use

A smith was important.

Cannon, awaiting mounting

This one's mounted.

Much of the fort

Church and meeting hall

He's closing for the day. We hurried to view the inside while there was still light from the windows.

Give our eyes time to adjust.

The Stuart coat of arms refers to their concept that the right of the King to rule comes from God: {God and my Right}.

A font, hewn hollow

The rest of the commandments are on the other side of the room.

A creed, and the other seven commandments

A stand to preach from

Ropes to ring the bells

Tower by the museum

1607 at Jamestown began the expansion overseas of the English speaking peoples.

Or as someone else put it:

At first, America *was* Virginia.

The top of another tower

Bees? Almost.

It's a 30-minute recording of a hive.

See thebeecause.org

and oercommons.org (Open Educational Resources)

Of course, the area was inhabited before the Europeans showed up.

Indians in this area had large, dome-like houses.

Fur hats weren't made of pleather.

And the Europeans soon brought slaves. "The slave trade system created by Europeans was much more damaging than were the traditional African forms of slavery."

Queen Njinga of Ndongo nearly forced the Portuguese out of Angola, but the Portuguese eventually defeated her. Angola is the place where most African slaves were transported from in the initial days of American colonization.

The Portuguese instructed slaves in Christianity before sending them to America. Conversely, many slave owners thought it would be immoral to enslave another Christian and so did not want slaves to be baptized. [slow shake of the head]

The Portuguese were sending slaves to Mexico; English privateers attacked Portuguese shipments, stole some of the slaves, and traded them for provisions in Virginia.

Slave quarters

Under-the-floor storage

Archeologists study under-the-floor storage.

"[M]ost people lived on scattered plantations and farms... [S]ome of Virginia's royal governors believed it would be easier to tax and control people who were living in more concentrated communities."

Too much to tell here. See...

https://www.jyfmuseums.org/learn/research-and-collections/essays/pocahontas

https://historicjamestowne.org/history/pocahontas/

John Smith: authoritarian but dedicated and able

Some colonists wanted to spend their time searching for gold. His response:

"he that will not worke shall not eate"

(detail at the bottom of the portrait)

His coat of arms. I'm intrigued by the bird holding the worm.

Of course, the land was already occupied.

I'm glad we got to board a reconstruction of a couple of the ships to help us appreciate just how crowded it must have been.

Human beings were taken from Angola as slaves.

The Powhatan gathered pine resin and pitch for building dugout canoes, binding tools to wooden shafts, and sealing baskets. The also used the sap and inner bark for their antiseptic and soothing properties. --See https://virginianaturalhistorysociety.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2022/12/Banisteria35_Powhatan-Medicinal-Plant-Use.pdf

Tsenacommacah (now called Virginia), 1600

This statue evokes the three ships of the colony.

The passage to the facility displays the 50 United States flags.

Back to the minivan

A rather unusual building

What is this? [carried by a pickup truck]

These lane-closure signs were moving!

Cement guardrails in place, we were expected to drive 60+ mph next to these workers.

Arby's labeled its sauces: "classic for a reason"; "why, of coursey"; "so good we named it after ourselves"; "for those with refined taste".

Pretty good

Working our way back to Warrenton.

Some routes are small; some are big.

Tesla Cybertruck. One version can go from 0-60 in under three seconds.

https://www.cargurus.com/research/articles/2024-tesla-cybertruck-pricing-specs-release-date

Nothing runs like a Deere.

Stealth RV?

Without truckers, nothing gets built.

Virginia changes speed limits by traffic and time of day. That makes it hard to just set and forget cruise control

Yes, one door is missing, but those bales of hay aren't going anywhere.

In the hotel hallway; much smaller and less-colorful than his African cousins

Just a local guy selling what his customers want: tractors. Land here seems to be used for more than hay, less-likely to be flipped to housing developments than near Montgomery AL.

A roundabout. I missed a photo of a split intersection where through traffic bypasses the roundabout [sigh].

We wonder what these birds are finding to eat at this Shell station.

We discussed the dome. I think it keeps sand from getting wet and freezing; Steph thinks it holds equipment.

Building supplies under cover?

Self storage

The overhead crossbeams are wider (longer) than what they support.

The columns that support them stay outside the travel lanes this way. The arrangement still looks odd, though.

Here are clearer examples.

Express lanes, separated from the regular lanes

CARFAX

Hungry?

Are we becoming wimps, or just more aware?

"B.J's Wholesale Club"

Train and subway station between the expressway lanes

Trains reach out between the lanes to exurbs

A fancy streetlight on a road next to the expressway

A nice home near the expressway

Some stretches hide the city.

The Pentagon

The "tiny" white building, Hilton Garden Inn, is within sight of our hotel entrance in Arlington.

This building seems to be growing a layer at a time (instead of having a completed skeleton to fill in).

The land of big buildings

Garrett County and Deep Creek Lake is a vacation destination. -- https://deepcreeklake.com/#:~:text=Carved%20in%20the%20quiet%20mountains,adventure%20and%20action%20for%20each.

Turn for the Cemetery

Turn left here.

At Arlington National Cemetery, this building at the end of the bridge that leads across the Potomac from Washington DC is the Military Women's Memorial, a museum. The tram doesn't stop here; most tourists don't know there's a museum behind these walls.

(another outside view)

Approaching the side from the Cemetery parking lot

Women of Valor

250 years of serving our nation

"Let the generations know that women in uniform also guaranteed their freedom."

Honoring women I have served with

Dr Mary Edwards Walker received the Congressional Medal of Honor for her service (mostly unpaid) during the Civil War. She is the only woman to receive this medal.

The museum features portraits of women serving in modern times. This depicts Army Private First Class Janelle Zalkovsky providing security while other soldiers survey a newly constructed road in Iraq.

This depicts Quartermaster 1st Class Hurtado and Senior Chief Petty Officer Heady, USN, hand-picked to serve aboard Old Ironsides: a wooden-hulled three-masted heavy warship: the world's oldest commissioned warship afloat.

In 1918, the U.S. Army Signal Corps sent 223 women to France as telephone operators to help win the Great War. They swore Army oaths, wore uniforms, held rank, and were subject to military justice. By War's end, they had connected over 26 million calls. The U.S. Government did not recognize their military service until 1977.

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the Six Triple Eight, was the only all Black women's battalion in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) to serve in Europe during WWII. They were sent to England and France to handle backlogged mail and cleared over 17 million pieces in only six months. Their motto: "No mail, low morale".

Women go to war (WWII).

Serving in the military

Brigadier General Wilma Vaught was the first woman on an operational deployment with the Strategic Air Command and had a long and distinguished career. She was the founder of the non-profit Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation that built and operates this museum. -- https://www.womenshistory.org/brig-gen-wilma-vaught-usaf-ret

While a lawyer, Justice Ginsburg successfully argued before the Supreme Court that not providing the same benefits to military servicewomen as male servicemen was unconstitutional. As a Supreme Court Justice, she delivered the opinion that the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) had to admit women.

The reason this was a big deal: “The Secretary of the Army shall ensure that a graduate of a senior military college [there are only 6 in all of the U.S.] who desires to serve as a commissioned officer on active duty upon graduation, who is medically and physically qualified, and who is recommended by the Professor of Military Science at the college, shall be assigned to active duty.” -- 10 U.S.C. Section 2111a, United States -- https://gosoced.org/blog/military-edu-institutions/senior-military-colleges/

We Also Served - Trailblazers

Proving their worth - again

Cracks in the glass ceiling

Our girls over there

Engaging the Enemy

Taking the field

[now that combat exclusions have been removed]

Trailblazers [most recent first]

Jeanine McIntosh Menze

Marcelite J Harris

Jasmin Moghbeli

Michelle Howard

Sarah Keys-Evans

Charity Adams Early

Women assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, Pope Army Airfield, and 437th Airlift Wing, Joint Base Charleston SC, form to participate in an all-female flight in commemoration of Women's History Month, March 17, 2021.

The enlisted women assigned to the Blue Crew of the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine USS Wyoming (SSBN 742)

Groundbreaking for the memorial was 22 June, 1995.

A table setting for the ones imprisoned or whose fate is unknown: the Prisoner of War/ Missing In Action Table. Such a table is sometimes present at ceremonies.

Women in Military Service for America Memorial

... Your thoughts recorded here will be kept in the archives of the Women's Memorial.

Honoring all women of the U.S. Military Past, Present, and future. The PLEDGE: To protect and defend our country.

[Gifted by the United States War Dogs Association. The statue represents the pledge.]

These ribbons say: I remember and honor ____

This memorial is not part of the Arlington National Cemetery and is not Federally funded!

I did not notice at the time that a stairway through this edifice leads to the higher ground beyond.

Funeral procession

As I pushed Steph uphill in the direction the procession had taken, a sign reminded us of the solemnity of this place...

No Recreation

Steph's photos, interspersed here, are taken with a fancy camera and lens and are sharper than mine.

Stairs; stop.

A sprinkler; not many are used here.

More stairs in another direction

We turned back to seek another route.

Heading uphill again

Unnoticed security

... Remember these are hallowed grounds.

Husband and wife from Alabama, with separate headstones. (They usually share one.)

(There's a tram in the distance.)

What had caught my attention: In memory of WWII amphibious scouts and raiders

Many trees are planted in memory and have a plaque at their base.

Dedicated to the 23rd Regimental Combat Team MIA or killed during the Korean War

A paper map would have been helpful, but none seemed forthcoming with enough detail to be helpful.

The sections are numbered.

A daughter.. A wife

Another pair with separate headstones

Ne les oubliez jamais {Never forget them}

Now from the tram. Pride ruled my will {phrase from a hymn} until my shoulders started to ache from uphill travel, and it was clear that our view would be limited with our current mode of transportation.

One normally pays for the tram; we rode free due to the wheelchair.

We headed back downhill and boarded a tram.

"Pride ruled my will" {phrase from a hymn} until my shoulders started to ache from uphill travel, and it was clear that our view would be limited with our current mode of transportation.

Extremely knowledgeable guide

One normally pays for the tram; we rode free due to the wheelchair.

Many flock to the burial site of John F Kennedy.

General "Chappie" James

Buried with his wife

Men of the Thresher

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

There are too many graves to take in, to absorb, to ponder.

But if you're not willing to defend your way of life, the toll will be inestimably higher.

We approached the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater from the opposite side from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

This arial image by Susanne Bledsoe, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers [Wikipedia] clarifies that statement. What we perceived as the back side of this complex is actually the entrance to an open plaza behind that tomb.

The entrance

Arlington Memorial Amphitheater

DULCE DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI {It is sweet and proper to die for one's country}

[Construction of the theater began in 1915.]

I chose not to join the crowd at the tomb; videos of the dedicated Marines who guard the tomb are clearer than what we would see in person, and we needed to husband our strength and time. We stayed on the tram.

Across from that entrance

Looking back at the Amphitheater

Yes, a ship's mast in the distance

It was only clear to us later, visiting the entrance museum, that we learned what this gate was doing here. It was was a public entrance to the cemetery in the 1800s. -- https://tripbucket.com/dreams/dream/visit-mcclellan-gate-arlington-national-cemetery-virginia/

Image from the museum..

On fame's eternal camping ground their silent tents are spread - and glory guards with solemn sound the bivouac [temporary camp] of the dead

Back at where we entered through a checkpoint, notice the detail of this representation..

From the bottom up..

Soldiers continue around the back side.

An angel holds a fallen figure while contemplating many.

The base of a slightly different version of this sculpture inside the museum says WW II Veterans.... were asked to save the nation and the world, and they did.

The entrance museum includes memorials of relationships.

Alliance between the Buffs [Royal East Kent Regiment] and the KRRC [King's Royal Rifle Corps] have a long history, fitting here because of their service with the Allies, crossing the Rhine, during WWII.

Conservators have a full-time job.

Much of this entrance museum focuses on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The British and French honor their unknown dead, providing an example to us.

From plantation to national cemetery. (I'm in the photo.)

... the U.S. Government established a Freedman's Village in Arlington in 1863... The village survived until 1900... a legacy continues in Arlington County today.

We saw this in the parking lot; the name looked funny. I learned later that it's applied to an all-electric micro bus.

As we leave the cemetery, we see the Lincoln Memorial in the distance across the Potomac.

Our hotel in Arlington

Arlington Court Suites Hotel

(with a faint image of me)

Enormous: about the size of six Microtel rooms

We passed this community garden as we walked to supper.

High-rise apartments are nearby.

Slow Down - Now Entering Safety Corridor - VISION Zero

Canadian flag

Oddly, these claim to hold rainwater.

Little library

Solar "epaulets" are on the "shoulders" of this home.

The rabbit blends in well..

Antique vehicle

Ceramic bird

Attention-getting design

Barn-like

Steph and Marty at Texas Jack's

Mexican-style street corn, but not on the cob

When you order pulled pork here, you get no sides, just the meat.

Contemplating messages (not visible in this photo) running along the bottom of the windows

Better to print a map next time

Celebrating our return to the hotel..

The hotel has a mezzanine. The downward ramp makes this possible while still having the "first floor", two levels above the lobby, at ground level at the back of this hotel on a hill. We were on the "first floor".

Room service would have been appropriate for our anniversary/ honeymoon, but "room service" was by "Order In": delivery from (as I learned later) from multiple kitchens that specialize in fulfilling "room service" menus.

We had a pushbutton peephole with doorbell.

This beats stuffing toilet paper to block the hole; it's only open when you push the button.

Lens to the hallway

I had brought enough utensils for a simple meal, but we didn't need to use them.

Family photos we bring when we travel

As you can see, watching TV from the bed was not an option.

This is a *big* room.

Picking up a meal, I passed the fitness center on the first floor; it had working equipment

and a water cooler

and free weights, and a scale.

This room, on the top floor, is only open for breakfast. They probably cater breakfast.

Through the door, through the windows of the top floor

I passed this mis-named "garden inn on the way to pick up lunch/ supper.

A fitness center

Park Mobile. (I was on foot.)

It claims you can pay in cash.

Ragtime, a New Orleans-themed restaurant, lives up to its name :)

(I picked up four entrees; we enjoyed them all.)

A thoughtful detail: hooks for your purse or bag if you sit at the bar

And undercounter lights

And a patio that would be nice in cooler weather

The Hilton Garden Inn I passed on the way has parking for $30 daily. (We paid $20 daily; parking expense is something to consider here.)

That's our hotel, a short walk from Ragtime

Ready to eat; except for my trip for food, we spent our 16th anniversary in the hotel room.

Attention to detail; we ate well :)

The TV was small and in front of the couch where we ate.

Because there was no index channel, we caught pieces of shows; can you identify this one?

Same movie; does this help?

We had snacks from Japan, provided by Michael and Mary-Lorraine.

cola-flavored gummies

Same movie, near the end: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Need a balcony roof? Just add one more balcony floor.

We took photos on our way to the Metro.

Our elder daughter went here when she moved with her husband to Virginia.

American Executive sounds better than riding a shared van to work. I learned later that this van provides door-to-door service.

East Falls Church Metro platform. We took the chair to spare Steph's knees (and because it's fun to push).

Using this on the subway is less hassle than getting on a bus: you simply roll into place and lock your brakes.

Signs name coming destinations, not station names. Adding compass directions would definitely have helped.

Emergency instructions

Station Map

National Guard with labels.

Shakes, etc.

Trying to determine which direction to take. I won't leave our portable printer at home again. Paper maps would have been *very* helpful.

We passed the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. This picture resembling a maze captures how we felt downtown, especially in late afternoon when large areas were cordoned off for construction and we couldn't trust the GPS.

Sandbagged vents

Puzzling construction techniques

Those who deny the scope of the Holocaust are dishonest. Its footprint is too large to be ignored. Information that follows was gathered from the museum or its Holocaust Encyclopedia unless otherwise attributed. You can find it in many, many other places as well.

Never forget.

Blurry, I know. The key statement: "Within a dozen years, two out of three European Jews would be dead, and European Jewish life changed forever."

Recall the context: Germany had lost "The Great War" and was saddled by the Allies with reparations payments.

Not many years later, the Great Depression followed.

Hindenburg won the office of President but eventually proposed Hitler as Chancellor {prime minister}.

The house of parliament (the Reichstag) burned shortly after Hitler was appointed and just before the next round of elections. Hitler convinced Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree suspending civil liberties. Hitler rounded up opponents thus making the elections one-sided and gained absolute power at the death of Hindenburg. -- multiple sources gathered at Wikipedia

The Terror Begins.

Buy only from German shops.

..defend yourselves against Jewish atrocity propaganda.

Burning of books

Not all by Jewish authors, books deemed un-German were burned in an orchestrated spectacle.

[Some of you might remember an episode of The Waltons in which neighbors begin to burn German books until John-Boy points out that one of the books they're starting to burn is the Bible, in German.]

Children as young as elementary-school age were indoctrinated.

The "Science" of Race. Notice the comparison of hair color to a standard.

The Nuremberg Laws disenfranchised individuals of Jewish birth, even those who had converted to Christianity.

It also forbade marriage between them and other Germans. For those who have studied the South in the U.S. pre-Civil war (and many years after), this may sound familiar in a different context.

Laws defined "full Jews", "part Jews", and Aryans. This was necessary in order to apply laws that treated these groups differently.

In pictorial form, as in a genealogical chart.

Jewish Responses: Some left if they could. Some committed suicide. Protests were completely in vain.

(A Jewish musician and his oboe)

In proposing a conference of nations to agree on what to do, U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt said: no country will be expected.. to receive a greater number of immigrants than is permitted by existing legislation."

Only the Dominican Republic agreed to admit a substantial number: 100,000 (versus the six million who were eventually slaughtered because the rest of the world did nothing).

Hitler claimed to be willing to give up Jews for asylum [after he knew that no one would receive them].

Desecration of the Torah

... of houses of worship

Essen Synagogue before..

Essen Synagogue after

Roma were fingerprinted and photographed. "Beginning in 1937, the Nazi regime used these records to imprison Roma in concentration camps.... One Nazi racial theorist further urged: 'In the long term, the German people will be freed from this public nuisance only when [the Gypsies'] fertility is completely eliminated.'"

We swear allegiance to the Constitution. Germans were required to swear allegiance to Hitler *personally*.

The Gestapo arrested without warrant and without oversight. Children were taught to report on their parents.

The legislative branch [such as it was]

The judiciary [this example from the Berlin criminal court]

Bakers organizations

The League of German Girls being prepared to bear Aryan children

Adolf Eichmann pressured Jews to leave Austria. This chart shows the "progress" of that initiative.

This ship of refugees went to Cuba, but their visas were cancelled before they arrived. We turned them away from Miami. They returned to German-occupied France: a death sentence.

Search for Refuge.

No Sanctuary in America.

And then open war blocked escape routes.

Some did make it to exile.

Their departure enriched other countries.

Imagine if Einstein and other scientists had not escaped.

Mass annihilation has a tendency to be erased from history. There were approximately 1.5 million Armenians living in the multiethnic Ottoman Empire in 1915. At least 664,000 and possibly as many as 1.2 million died during the genocide, either in massacres and individual killings, or from systematic ill treatment, exposure, and starvation.

Hitler was betting that genocide goes unpunished. Is he right?

This proclamation was issued against Poles. Britain and France had pledged to defend Poland but then failed to do so when Germany and Russia quickly took Poland over. Germany shipped its Jews to the five killing centers; all of those centers were in conquered Poland: Chełmno (Kulmhof), Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

This stump marked the location of of mass grave of 1700 massacred Polish civilians who were blindfolded and then killed.

During German invasion of Poland, 10,500 Poles were killed in retaliation for anti-German riots.

Germany agreed to divide Poland with Russia, allowing Germany to work without Russian interference.

Before long, Germany's influence spread much farther.

And then Hitler betrayed Russia.

Gas chambers were first used to murder disabled people. That worked so well that it "became the blueprint for the mass murder of Jews and others in killing centers in German-occupied Poland".

Political leadership for disguised killing.

Doctors and law enforcement prominent in disguised killing.

Irony? Dr Ernst Wentzler invented an incubator for premature infants, but he and his colleagues selected which children to kill. He also created methods to deceive parents into surrendering their infants and toddlers. At least 10,000 children were murdered.

One person related that she used to hear the crying of babies next door, through the wall. Then one day the crying stopped.

Names of entire communities that were erased

(A view of the entrance hall below)

We knew but mostly didn't pay attention.

And of course Hitler lied.

"Steps to solve race problem"

Some marched in protest. Authors who had successfully emigrated expected to hear via radio the sound of their books going up in flames.

Some were willing to appease aggressors.

Some protested ineffectively.

The result: the U.S. Secretary of State imposed *additional restrictions and paperwork*.

We were apparently unwilling to believe that evil can be well-organized.

"Hysterical"

100 individual Jews are assessed up to 150,000 marks each for damage done by Aryan window smashers and store wreckers. This does not include an earlier one billion-mark assessment decreed against German Jews for the murder of the Paris Embassy secretary.

Words, not action...

We didn't believe them, or didn't care.

This November headline was after the July conference at which all major nations had agreed to do nothing to help the Jews.

["When someone tells you he is evil, believe him." -- A statement from Steph's mom.]

Finally...

"Shocked?" With an entire intelligence network at his fingertips, "shocked" is hardly the right word. So he didn't re-post his Envoy to Berlin. Ho hum.

However, he did call to unite all of North and South America against foreign aggression. This is November 16, 1938. We're not formally in the war yet.

Even while Pirow, South Africa’s Defense Minister, was negotiating to give up African territory to Germany. -- https://tribunemag.co.uk/1938/10/munich-plan-develops-runciman-sell-out-in-portugal

Its scriptures would include: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. [Deuteronomy 6:4-5]

A Shtetl {little town} - Ejszyszki {Eishishok}, a place populated by Jews for 900 years. These photos attest to the lives of the people there before the Holocaust.

Some of the photos were linked to this device that told their back story.

And then they were gone, along with thousands of other communities.

More than 1.5 million Jews were killed by these squads in the occupied Soviet territories. Those rounded up were driven to secluded sites, forced to remove their clothes, shot, and buried in large pits.

Local collaborators helped do this. [sigh]

The "final solution"

Theresienstadt

"Residential quarters" with an eleven-foot barbed-wire topped wall

Facsimiles of children's drawings. These children were later deported to Auschwitz.

In ghettos, Jewish councils presided over doomed communities. They were appointed by the Germans to support a starving population and later forced to assist in deportation.

Almost all died.

Only 2,000 of 30,000 survived Kaunas {Kavno}.

Stalin was surprised when Hitler broke their non-aggression pact, signed earlier to let Hitler take most of Poland, unopposed by Stalin.

Romania also massacred Jews.

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich, also known as the "The Butcher of Prague" -- https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/the-assassination-of-reinhard-heydrich-the-butcher-of-prague/

Szmul M Zygielbojm addressed this letter to the President and the Prime Minister of Poland, concluding: "I bid farewell to everyone and everything that was dear to me and is loved by me." [And then he killed himself.]

Other martyrs

Unearthed during postwar excavations of the destroyed Warsaw ghetto. Artillery shells. A Mauser rifle.

Deportation = Annihilation

"Everybody said farewell to life through his neighbor."

Multiply this..

by this.

Receiving soup rations

The purpose of most of the labor was to work captives to death.

The Allies demonstrated the ability to bomb military targets within five miles of this killing center but refrained from destroying this killing center that exterminated 10,000 people per day. There was fear on the part of Jewish organizations and the Allies about the civilian deaths that would result from attacking this non-military target and the German propaganda from such an operation.

[20-20 quarterbacking on my part; bombing the incoming *railways* would have slowed the flow of the doomed.]

That potential target

Memoirs of Rudolf Höss, SS Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau

We are the shoes. We are the last witnesses...

... and because we are only made of fabric and leather -- and not of blood and flesh -- each one of us avoided the hellfire. -- Moses Schulstein

My number is 174517; we have been baptized; we will carry the tatoo on our left arm until we die. -- Primo Levi, Italian Jewish Author, Auschwitz Survivor

Saving the Danish Jews. "Among the Nazi-occupied countries, only Denmark rescued its Jews."

In October, 7,200 Danish Jews were brought to safety in Sweden.

The Germans deported about 500; about 90% of them survived the Holocaust.

At great risk, they were smuggled to Sweden in ships like this one.

Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent sky. -- Elie Weisel, Nobel Laureate, Auschwitz Survivor

Confiscated possessions

Eyeglasses

Children's toys

More shoes. Photos were taken by the Russians, not just the British and Americans: multiple witnesses.

Prisoners were marched out of camps to be killed elsewhere where their deaths might not easily be counted or known.

Soviets, now joined with the Allies, encountered killing camps.

They, as other Allies, had the unhappy task of burying the dead to curb the spread of disease.

On April 12, 1945, Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton were taken to inspect Ohrdruf Nord concentration camp near Gotha. It was not one of the most gruesome camps: just an ordinary slaughterhouse, stinking of death, with 3,000 or more naked and emaciated corpses barely in or on the ground, rotting, lice crawling over them. Bradley was revolted; Patton withdrew to vomit; Eisenhower, his face frozen white, forced himself to examine every nook and cranny of the camp. -- https://www.shapell.org/manuscript/general-eisenhower-ohrdruf-concentration-camp/

Eisenhower immediately issued orders forcing all nearby U.S. military units not engaged on the front lines to visit Ohrdruf. He wanted hundreds of thousands of individual soldiers to serve as living, eyewitness documentation.

He famously remarked to his staff: "We are told that the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least, he will know what he is fighting against."

-- https://www.shapell.org/manuscript/general-eisenhower-ohrdruf-concentration-camp/

Liberation didn't help instantly...

Emaciated prisoners were at the edge of death.

The mimeograph room supporting the Nuremburg trials

For them, it is far more important that these incredible events be established by clear and public proof, so that no one can ever doubt that they were fact and not fable.

Cast of a wall made from headstones

The headstones were from a Jewish graveyard, the site of which was repurposed for mass executions.

After the war, the community recovered fragments of tombstones and made a mosaic of them as a reminder; this casting was made with their permission.

... I did not speak out -- ... Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me. -- Martin Neimöller

Hall of Remembrance

"What have you done? Hark, thy brother's blood cries out to me from the ground!" -- Genesis 4:10

Deuteronomy 4:9

Deuteronomy 30:19

The elevator looks scary.

Grim

Unreasoning violence continues.

(U.S. Department of Agriculture)

This is as close as we could get to the Capitol Mall from where we were. Fenced areas spanned city blocks.

(Taken with a zoom lens)

Zooming in a bit more

We passed the National Museum of African American History. Its architecture makes it appear to have been built in upside-down sections.

Welcome rain

I would summarize the American History Museum as follows…

The top floor shows the influence of entertainment, or as others have said, pop culture

The second floor celebrates our nation, or “how did we become us?”

The first floor shows inventiveness

Recognize a medal to the Cowardly Lion?

(a replica for sale)

(Lowrider items for sale)

"Through culture, we explore what it means to be an American."

Prejudice targeted Latinos

"We serve whites only - no Spanish or Mexicans."

But their culture thrived anyway.

"Dia de Los Muertes, Los Angeles, California, 2020. Murals and Dia de Los Muertos incorporate rituals that bridge Mexican and Indigenous roots."

"Reading Lowrider magazine was my education..."

Yes, it's a stroller tricked out as a low rider.

It looks as if I am pushing it.

Archie Bunker and others

George Jefferson: the character featured later in The Jeffersons

Props from the show

Headband, necklace, and gloves Julie Newmar wore as Catwoman on Batman, 1966-1968

Prop credentials used by Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully on the X-Files, 1993-2002

[I remember... The truth is out there.]

Costume worn by Lucy Lawless on Xena: Warrior Princess, 1995-2001

It's a beautiful day in the Neighborhood...

Oscar

Shackles from "Roots"

On a visit to our oldest daughter's family and to my sister, then living in Charleston, I bought two copies of this to learn it in advance of a Biscuit's Baseball game where I had been asked to sing it. (I did well, a cappella, from memory, trying to lead a crowd that seemed not to know it.)

You could pose with a replica.

Prince

They advertised a spectacle.

Click your heels

This is still how voting works. Anything that makes it harder for the volunteers who man our polls (such as stretching the voting period) works against the security of the process. Anything that separates us from the physical ballot or keeps us from using physical artifacts to verify the process removes the security of the process.

The flag that was flown over Fort McHenry is fragile and the size of several vehicles. We were permitted to see it but not photograph it. However, in another room a video display moves over a high-resolution image a small portion at a time.

This photo shows how hard it was to display before the museum gained it. (A person in front of it is dwarfed by it.)

The person on the right looks like a fellow Toastmaster living in Alabama.

"The Nation We Dream. ...We strive for a voice in government, a chance to improve our economic situation, and the freedom to practice our religions... Our dreams are not always the same, but our efforts to see them realized shapes the nation we share."

Washington

I need not point out the absurdity of your exertions for liberty, while you have slaves in your homes. -- Caesar Sarter

This was a modern vehicle; I forget sometimes how far removed we are from the past.

Streets named after presidents

A Vindication of the Rights of Women

How old is the house?

Most of the house may have been added later.

Style

I think of the changes my brother- and sister-in-law made to an older home they lived in while raising kids.

Public records, private reflections, and pictures also give clues to the age a house as it exited at a given point in time.

The house on exhibition

Quilts added decoration, not just function.

Doing laundry in the 1800s

Equipment for gardening and canning.

1942

Uncle Sam needs FAT. Out of the frying pan, into the machine gun. This is the women's campaign.

Take them to your meat dealer.

Save it for the soldiers.

STOP

The carved wooden figure of Columbia (also known as the Goddess of Liberty) from the pilothouse of the Hudson River steamboat Mary Powell, dating from the 1860s and housed at the National Museum of American History. -- https://www.si.edu/object/goddess-liberty-figure%3Anmah_693815

From many, one

The Louisiana Purchase

Slavery

Mrs. Charles Lowndes, wife of a plantation owner in Colleton County, South Carolina -- https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/many-voices/online/unsettling-continent-1492%E2%80%931776/british-south-carolina

C: Catholic

P: Protestant

Farm work, often by people encouraged to work here illegally

She is holding tomatoes.

Border control

This display asks: should people with prosthetics be allowed to compete with people who do not?

Bras that made exercise less-painful

(This is a wheelchair people use to play sports.)

His Master's Voice.

Dolby's Noise Reduction System

(and eventually, the Walkman)

Listening on the Go

"The Brown Box": the prototype for the first multiplayer, multi-program video game system.

Left paddle and serve button; right paddle and serve button

His workshop..

What can you imagine?

A view of the National Museum of African-American History and the Washington Monument

Having a home freezer made it possible to buy frozen foods to eat later.

We watched this short video on the kitchen table.

Many inventions make homemaking easier.

The sewing machine, I recognize. The device above it, I don't. The device below it might be for dealing with stacks of fabric.

Steph spotted me.

Stand on the spot..

and see yourself in yesteryear as a Boy Sailor in the 1900s.

(Pink was supposedly a manly color in the 1900s; it was related to red, which symbolized power. For girls, light blue was preferred.)

Steph had her camera up to her face; so, the image includes it.

This shot is better.

Parked on the "spot" where the device is looking for your face

Dancing Queen

For the spirited woman of the '70s

Never iron. Glamor that practically takes care of itself.

Thermometers

I think it's a flush toilet.

Within memory for some

Video Cassette Recorder (VCR)

A vacuum without a separate canister

Toasters and teapots have come a long way.

Name that object..

The computer is newer than it looks.

(At work in the 80s, I used a Xerox Star with one-button mouse; that preceded the Lisa McIntosh.)

Kodak "brownie" camera?

Washing machine with wringer

The giveaway is the size of the slot; it's for a 3 1/2-inch disk.

I never used the phone at the left, but I did have a black-and-white TV.

Amazing: vibrations into sound

Disc record player, early 1900s

Apple II, using a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk. A
"portable" computer I traveled with near my end of my military career used that size disk. (There were computers by Cromemco that used 8-inch disks.)

Top hat

Apple II

Sequined shoes

Patents. Electric guitar construction.

Ziplock

Toy building block [Legos]

Fender electric guitar

I went to high school with Glenn McCrae Gray, who made his own hollow-body guitar in shop class: really impressive.

Edison's electric lamp

Whirligig [yo-yo?]

Bread server or analogous seal tight container - E S Tupper [Tupperware]

E Whitney -- Cotton Gin

In 1790, around 700,000 people were enslaved in the U.S. primarily on tobacco and rice plantations. Cotton was a relatively minor crop, less than 9,000 bales annually. His invention to quickly remove seeds from cotton made growing cotton profitable if laborers were available to pick the cotton. Six years after his invention, production leapt to 200,000 bales. Thus, this invention spurred the demand for slaves. Because cotton is hard on the land, plantation owners sought more land to the west, increasing pressure to display Native Americans. -- https://www.eliwhitney.org/cotton-gin-and-its-legacies

Apple iPod [MP3 Player]

Eventually discontinued when the iPhone was released. -- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adammossoff_on-this-date-in-innovation-history-stephen-activity-7310360974601928704-Xzzg/

Money..

(My Uncle Gerald was this kind of locksmith.)

This currency bore the image of female leaders.

Martha Washington Silver Certificate

Susan B Anthony dollar coin

[easily confused by me with a quarter]

Sacagawea dollar coin

[safer for me; not similar to a quarter]

Image of Harriet Tubman next to a proposed replacement for our current twenty-dollar bill

(Here's the tortoise carrying a safe.)

This is real. It was used to move funds between Federal Reserve banks. Only they could use it. It was illegal for private individuals to have one.

[I'm reminded of Mark Twain's story about a million-pound note given to an American stranded in London to see what he could do with a note too large for anyone to cash.]

This forty-dollar bill was issued by the Continental Congress. Such bills were issued during the Revolutionary War but were soon worthless. -- https://www.americanantiquarian.org/library/american-currency-during-revolution/continental-congress

This is indeed a $500 bill, legal in 1874. -- https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1839533

Familiar to many of us

Coca-Cola bottle with an unforgettable shape

Aunt Jemima Syrup

My high school library was getting rid of back issues.

Etch A Sketch

Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?

These look like current products to me.

I have a tape deck like the one in the lower left corner.

Life, liberty, and *the pursuit* [mentioned only indirectly here] of happiness

A Park Mobile machine that lets you park without using a phone app

The rain stopped when we were ushered out of the museum at closing time.

Why do we emulate ancient civilizations when creating government buildings?

Worth every penny

I set my mini tripod on the food truck's shelf

Hungry yet?

They did a good job.

Kudos to them

An electric scooter. They're everywhere.

A foot-pedal opens the very smelly bins.

We only saw one of these museums in central D.C. during our trip. Clearly a whole week would not be enough.

I worked for Northrop Grumman for many years. The planetarium mentioned here is in the National Air and Space Museum.

A bicycle, painted white, was strapped to a signpost.

Signpost at Constitution Ave

We tried to cut through..

But that didn't work.

An area the length of many city blocks was blocked by a construction fence, and GPS kept running us into it as we tried to reach a Metro station. I brought the wheelchair (empty) up these steps, trying to get around road blockages.