Travel To

Madame,

Good observations and comments, worthy of engagement!  Forgive me my indulgence in “light summer writing,” as I continue this serial!

The next day was the Holocaust Museum.  Made quite the impression on MFP (Miss Face Palm, for those of you just joining us).  Looking at the wonderfully done museum, which had just the right mixture of detail and ready accessibility, one got so many insights into how EASY such a thing happened.  The Nazis used simple messages, along with a simple strategy of dividing people, injecting fear, and using economic plight. When apathy toward others conjoins with economic hardship, it is so easy to incrementally move to what in the beginning is the unthinkable.  Watching the burning of synagogues in the early days, the shaming, and the ostracizing, was hard-hitting.  Some people in the crowds were enthusiastic, some were bewildered, and some seemed to be standing around wondering when SOMEONE or SOMEONES were going to stop the crazies.  But most simply ignored it, a denial or apathy.  After all, since THEY themselves weren’t political, what business was it of theirs, what could it possibly mean for their lives?  And if anything, rural people seemed to be even more susceptible to apathy or denial.  “The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals” reads a White Rose (German anti-Nazi peaceful resistance underground movement) leaflet from June 1942.  The Museum features a section on that movement.  What it only touches on briefly is that by 1942, the movement, which contained a large number of students and their professors, had been half wiped out (killed), and by the end of 1944, it would be nearly entirely wiped out.

It seemed to me that the faces in the videos at the museum of the bystanders or persecutors looked to be the same unexamining,  ideologically sure, faces in the ranks of the supporters of so many of the politicians that get elected today.

Of course, there were many other things in the museum, and different aspects make stronger impressions on different people.  The stacks of shoes, the rail cars, the faces of a village culture entirely wiped out, the looks on childrens’ faces, and so on.  The museum is designed to capture the attention of adults and children in many varied ways.

It might seem that after the many hours of that somber museum experience, food would not be a thought, but I wanted to go to a place where the aura was positive.  So we went back to the American Indian Museum to the café.  Had wild blueberry tart, pulled buffalo sandwich, fry bread with blueberry, chilled melon soup with goat cheese fritter, chilled green pea and golden raisin puree with crab ceviche soup, spicy grilled chayote with pietas, cumin-roasted squash, pole beans with hickory butter, empanada sweet potato with chile chocolate, guava juice.  Awesomely good!

The concierge Andre at the hotel was very helpful, a natural.  There’s always activity going on.  A group of Nigerian female students from 20 years ago had come back to Washington to hold their reunion at the hotel, and I think he was amused and entertained by it all.  Anyway, K street environs keep happenings into the wee hours.  A late night (10 pm) dinner at Fujimar Asian-Latin bistro, right across the street from the hotel, was delicious:  Seaweed field greens, a volcano roll, black velvet roll, and chocolate soufflé dessert with homemade ice cream.    The sushi had some salsa type stuff with it to give it a kick, but not too much.  And Fujimar uses really long forks and spoons.  I laughed at the irony of a K Street (seemingly lobbyist heavy) establishment using long utensils, and was thinking of literary cautions about trafficking with denizens of the lower regions, of “using the long spoon when supping with devils.” :)

This particular night seemed to have Latins and African/African-Americans inside the club focusing on dancing, and Arabs and Middle Easterners and an assortment of women in the outdoor lounge area enjoying hookah and lots of laughter.  How many were lobbyists was not easily discernible.

I seem to have a limitation of being able to transcribe only one “vacation” day at a time.  :) Until next week, good Madame!