7:30 am - leave Wangenheim Middle School. 2 buses 100 kids 8 adults
11:15 am - arrive at the museum in LA after a 4 hour bus ride. 1 pit stop for bathroom and vending machines
11:30 am - tour the museum and do the interactive exhibits.
2:15 pm - leave the museum
7:10 pm - arrive back at Wangenheim. 1 pit stop in Laguna Nigel for McD's, Wiener Schnitzel or 7-11
The long story, not including the 8 hours on the bus in heavy, stop and go traffic to LA and back:
The Museum of Tolerance is an interactive museum dedicated to educating the public about the Holocaust and crimes against humanity. You can read more about it. http://www.museumoftolerance.com/site/c.tmL6KfNVLtH/b.4865925/k.CAD7/HomeMOT.htm
There are 2 sections to the school tour. The first is about what is going on in the world today highlighting personal and societal responsibility.
Tolerance and Intolerance
There were tons of computers that were hooked up to websites that on the surface looked like they were about tolerance and peace but were actually highly racist, terrorist or sexual.
We did interactive experiences about teenage drunk driving,
terrorism and child abuse, including child labor workers, child sex trade, children soldiers and children sold into slavery to pay family debts.
The kid... and adults were definitely made to think. And what we thought was not necessarily true... or right.
The second section was about the Holocaust. We all received cards with the picture and name of a child that was affected in some way by the Holocaust. We swiped the cards at different stations along the way to see what was happening to our "person". Fittingly enough, I got a boy from Poland, Yezik Wielkabroda, who was born and raised in a small town and then was imprisoned in the Warsaw Getto. Like so many others, he was no one special, just a regular kid, who was born in the wrong place, at the wrong time and a Jew.
After several engaging multi media presentations about the history, causes and results of the Nazi's and Hitler,
the tour culminated in actually walking through a replica of the gas chamber doorways at Auschwitz. They were marked "Children and Others" and "Able bodied".
We then sat in a replica gas chamber and listened to personal stories as we watched graphic images and photos.
It was very unsettling as an adult. At the beginning, we were given the option to leave if we needed to. Some kids in other groups cried but no one left. Finally we got a printout to keep that told what happened to our "person". Almost everyone I compared with said, "Never heard from again."
Everyone I talked to wished we had more time to look at the actual artifacts and read more at the exhibits. It was a very moving and emotional experience. I highly recommend it for everyone.
"Hope lives when people remember" - Simon Wiesenthal
It is what it is...
Namaste
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