The American Airpower Museum is gearing up for a return of its C-47 D-Day living history flight experience on June 12. You can sign up, grab your gear and done your WWII helmet and uniform and fly in the troop transport plane, reenacting the experience of paratroopers on that historic and fateful day.
The flights on Saturday, June 12,will also celebrate the start of summer and a return to normalcy, after the COVID-19 lockdowns and quarantines.
To accommodate demand, AAM has scheduled three flights between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Seats will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. To book a flight, call (516) 531-3950, visit the Museum’s gift shop or call (631) 454-2039, Thursday – Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (a great gift for Father’s Day!).
“Parachutists” board the WWII Douglas C-47 Skytrain Troop Transporter at the American Airpower Museum, Farmingdale. D-Day reenactment flights will be held on June 12. (Photo courtesy of American Airpower Museum)
AAM’s Living History Flight Experience is a one-of-a-kind immersive educational program, where re-enactors take you up in an original WWII C-47 to get a sense of what our 101st and 82nd Airborne Division Paratroopers felt on their incredible 1,200-plane D-Day assault. This unique immersive flight experience includes: a mission briefing; a chance to wear authentic military field jackets, helmets and gear; the actual sights and sounds as the C-47’s engines fire up and you’re off into the blue; see and hear the crew operate their C-47 and paratroopers getting ready for battle; and you actually form up and hook your parachute to a static line!
This is a family-friendly experience for all ages. The program is about 1.5 hours long and each flight takes 25 minutes. A flight experience entitles you to bring along an additional person who can visit the Museum all day free of charge. The cost of the C-47 flight is $350 – which goes toward supporting AAM’s mission to honor veterans and U.S. aviation history by preserving the aircraft and their legacy for future generations.
‘Warbirds’ Continue Tradition Flying in Memorial Day Air Show
Over Memorial Day Weekend, the American Airpower Museum (AAM) continued its traditional participation in the Jones Beach Air Show, flying their fabled “Arsenal of Democracy” warbirds. AAM’s fleet of iconic and meticulously restored military aircraft included a B-25 Mitchell Bomber, Douglas C-47 Skytrain troop transporter, Grumman TBM Avenger Torpedo Bomber, Curtiss P-40 Flying Tiger, P-51D Mustang Fighter, AT-6 Texan Warbird and AT28D5 Nomad Vietnam Era Fighter.
Visitors to the museum got to watch the pilots start their engines, taxi and lift off, performing flybys before leaving to join the Jones Beach Air Show, then watched the aircraft return, touch down and taxi back to Hangar 3.
We had the special experience of seeing the close-up and meeting pilots and crew of two visiting U.S. Navy EF/A-18 Super Hornets. The Hornets are supersonic, high-tech combat jets, capable of flying at Mach2 (twice the speed of sound), designed as both fighters and attack aircraft, which have the capability to use electromagnetic energy to disarm the guidance of enemy missiles.
US Navy pilot Wes Henderson pilots one of the most sophisticated fighter jets in America’s arsenal, the F-18. The Wyandanch native was inspired to fly during his visits to the American Airpower Museum. Watching the young children looking in awe at the collection of aircraft, spanning much of aviation’s military history, you can see that same look of awe and inspiration.
Two young fellows, aged 17 and looking to start college next year, were clearly star-struck in the presence of Henderson and his three other Navy crew, who flew from their base in Whidbey Island, WA in two of the F-18 Super Hornets, to spend Memorial Day Weekend with family and be part of the inspirational events taking place. Both young men are already pilots: Joe Jannelli of Dix Hills, inspired to learn fly after seeing a pamphlet at high school, has his ambition set to become a US Navy pilot (he’s headed to Embry Riddle next year) and C.J. Grasso of Amityville wants to join the Air Force (he’s going to Maritime College) and will actually be flying with the GEICO Skytypers.
We also got to see up close a U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II, “The Warthog”.
The aim of the event: “To honor the men and women of the ‘Greatest Generation’ who built, maintained and piloted the iconic warbirds of yesteryear in a bold defense of freedom during World War II, as well as active duty military, national guard and reservists who continue this mission and command the skies in advanced supersonic jet aircraft to our present day,” said AAM founder Jeff Clyman.
What makes Long Island’s American Airpower Museum so special among aviation museums is that this is so much more than a static display of vintage aircraft. This is living history –just about every day you visit, you can see these historic aircraft fly – you can even purchase a seat to fly in AAM’s AT-6 Texan and Waco Biplane.
The Airpower museum is all about honoring that sacrifice and commemorating the people who flew the missions, parachuted into danger, reported on the war. Rather than tell the history of aviation writ large, it is more about the story of specific planes and people. There is a lot that puts you into the story – you get to climb into a fuselage and take hold of a machine gun with the ammo belt, climb into the C-47 troop transport plane that would shortly take off for its turn in the Air Show, piloted by Andrew Beard of North Babylon (who spent eight years flying for the Canadian Air Force, even piloting Canada’s Air Force One carrying the Prime Minister.)
Long Island’s only flying military aviation museum celebrated its 20th anniversary last year.
Its impressive collection was started by Jeffrey Clyman, president of the museum and the foundation.
His first acquisition was the P10-17 WWII training biplane which used to fly in air shows. His second was the Avenger. The third, the AT-6 “Texan” came from the Spanish air force where it was used for desert warfare in the Sahara
The Grumman TBM Avenger is the same plane model which George H.W. Bush few in WWII in which he was shot down (the other two crew members did not survive); you can see where Bush autographed this plane. Known as the “ship killer,” so many Japanese ships were destroyed by the torpedoes it carried, that upon seeing it coming, crew would jump off, the museum’s publicist, Bob Salant, tells me during my visit.
You can actually buy a seat for a flight in the WACO UPF-7 biplane (the initials stand for Weaver Aircraft Company of Ohio) and a North American AT-6 Texan, which give you the unparalleled experience of flying with an open cockpit.
You can also buy a seat in a D-Day reenactment flying aboard the WWII Veteran Douglas C-47 Gooney Bird, which carried parachutists – you wear an appropriate uniform, there is the radio speech of President Eisenhower sending the troops into this fateful battle, and while you don’t actually parachute, at the end, you are given a card that says whether you lived or died.
That’s what “Living history” means to the American Airpower Museum.
Indeed, just about all the aircraft you see in the hangar and on the field (a few are on loan), are working aircraft and have to be flown to be maintained, so any time you visit, you are likely to see planes flying.
Among the planes that played an important role in history is the “Mis-Hap” – a North American B25 Mitchell bomber that was used as a transport plane for General Doolittle, famous for mounting the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo – the first attack on Japan’s mainland after Pearl Harbor. It was General Hap Arnold’s personal plane (subsequent owners included Howard Hughes).
Another is the Macon Belle, on view in a fascinating exhibit that pays homage to the Tuskegee Airmen, one of whom, William Johnson is a Glen Cove resident. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII. They flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa, earning more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses.
You can walk through the Douglas C-47B. Built in 1935 and in service since 1936, the DC3 started as one of the first commercial civilian airliners. It was best known for being used in the Berlin Airlift, dropping food, clothing and medical supplies to Berliners suffering under the Soviet occupation. The plane is dubbed “Second Chance” possibly because after World War II, it was sold to the State of Israel and saw more than 30 years in the Israel Air Force (very possibly flew in the Yom Kippur and Six Day wars). Today, the C-47B is used in D-Day reenactments.
Inside the hangar, there are several excellent exhibits, including one showcasing the WASPs – the Women Airforce Service Pilots who were used to fly planes to their missions. Another focuses on women war correspondents, among them, Martha Gellhorn, considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century, reporting on virtually every major world conflict over her 60-year career (she was also the third wife of novelist Ernest Hemingway).
Clyman, who started his museum in New Jersey, moved it to Farmingdale, Long Island, the “cradle of aviation,” where America’s aviation industry began and many of these planes were built, and where the people who built them, maintained them and flew them, still live. Many of the docents as well as the pilots are former Republic workers and veterans.
“My dad was a combat pilot in WWII. So was my uncle. My mom was a nurse,” Clyman tells me. “But just as the 1920s followed WWI, and the 1950s after WWII, they didn’t talk about their experiences in war until they were about to die.” His mission is to not only legacy of the planes, but honor the people.
The structure that the American Airpower museum occupies, some 65 years ago, was a crucial part of America’s “Arsenal of Democracy” – it was home to Republic Aviation, the complex where more than 9,000 P-47 Thunderbolts were produced.
“Today, no American aviation museum with a squadron of operational World War II aircrafts has a more appropriate setting for its flight operations,” Clyman says. “Taxing to the very runways and hangars that dispatched Thunderbolts to war, vintage aircrafts recreate those turbulent years and allow the public to watch these planes in their natural environment – the air.”
The hangar where the museum is located is now part of a historic preservation district, as a result of the effort of Senator Charles Schumer and them-Congressman Steve Israel.
There are uniforms, equipment, even two Nikon cameras adapted for use by astronauts that flew in the Space Shuttle.
Here are more photos that capture the homecoming of the F-18 Super Hornet crew:
The American Airpower Museum, “Long Island’s only flying military aviation museum,” is located on the landmarked former site of Republic Aviationat Republic Airport, Farmingdale, NY. The Museum maintains a collection of aviation artifacts and an array of aircraft spanning the many years of the aircraft factory’s history. ‘Where aviation history takes flight!” The Museum is a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Educational Foundation Chartered by the New York State Board of Regents
I was surprised to discover during a Global Scavenger Hunt mystery tour around the world in 2019 that I was actually on an odyssey of the Jewish Diaspora. It wasn’t my intention or my mission but it seems that everywhere we touched down (we only learn where we are next going when we are told to get to the airport), I found myself tracing a route set by trade (and permitted occupations), exile and refuge.
It started in Vietnam and then just about every place we traveled: Yangon, Myanmar, where I visited the last synagogue in that country (it’s a historic landmark and still serves a handful of congregants); in Athens, where I discovered the site of a synagogue, serving a Jewish community that had existed in Athens at least since the 3rd C BC and possibly as early as 6th C BC, near where the world’s first “parliament” would have been. In Petra, Jordan, I learned of a connection to Moses and the Exodus (the first Diaspora?). Then the ancient cities of Marrakesh and Fez in Morocco, which has only recently established full diplomatic relations with Israel, and on to Gibraltar, which made me feel I had been deposited in Brigadoon. From Gibraltar, I walked into Spain and took the bus to Seville, where my Jewish odyssey continued:
Seville, Spain
This part of my odyssey is like going to ground zero for the Jewish Diaspora, at least in the past 600 years, when Jews were forced to convert or be expelled, in the Inquisition in 1492 (many who stayed practiced in secret, as Marranos).
At some point in my walk-about in Seville, I find myself in front of a gate with a sign on the wall that says “Juderia,” which, I later learn was the old Jewish Quarter (before Spain evicted Jews, in 1492, known as the Inquisition). It has been converted into a hotel, Las Casas de la Juderia, comprised of a vast complex of interwoven dwellings, a city within a city, a sprawling maze of 27 houses and two palaces, restored to their 15th century glory, literally in the shadow of the Cathedral and the Alcázar (https://www.lascasasdelajuderiasevilla.com/en/).
“Unmistakably Spanish, the family-run hotel is an alluring retreat hidden right in the heart of the city,” writes Trafalgar, a tour company which features this “accommodation with a story” in its Seville program.
“At Las Casas de la Juderia, you‘ll tread in the footsteps of nobility and even royalty. Over the centuries, Christopher Columbus, The Duke of Bejar and The Count of Villamanrique have all stayed here. In fact, after returning from America, Columbus’s men all resided in these houses. Perhaps most compelling of all is the network of subterranean tunnels connecting houses commissioned by former owner, the Duke of Segorbe. You can wander through these today; in fact, breakfast is taken in the captivating underground Hall of Mirrors.” (https://blog.trafalgar.com/2018/02/26/stays-stories-sevilles-las-casas-de-la-juderia/)
I learn later that Jews had lived in Seville since the 6th century BCE. Though persecuted by Visigoths, Jews were protected under the Moors. Persecution began again in 1391 under Catholics – the Jewish Quarter was burned down. The Inquisition began in earnest in 1381, all Jews who did not convert (and some continue to practice secretly) were expelled by 1492. About half of the 300,000 Jewish Spaniards left, writes Fiona Flores Watson (https://www.andalucia.com/history/jews.htm), who suggests visiting the Centro de Interpretación Judería de Sevilla to learn more about the history of Jews in Seville.
It bears reminding that Columbus set out on his voyage of discovery of the “New World” in 1492, the same year as the official start of the Spanish Inquisition. Many believe that Marranos – secret Jews – were among his crew and founded the first white settlements in the New World, on Caribbean islands like Jamaica (one imagines that Jews missed the opportunity to claim the New World, but oh well.)
“The year of discovery in 1492 was also the seminal year of the Sephardic diaspora, when Spanish Jews were required to convert to Catholicism or to leave Spain. Much of the population moved on to Portugal or found homes on the Mediterranean littoral. Columbus’s first crew included several conversos, or Spanish-Jewish converts to Christianity, notably the interpreter, Luis Torres. Importantly, three conversos in the Spanish court were influential in securing royal approval for the controversial expedition.” http://brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/exhibitions/judaica/pages/geography+.html
Columbus’s letter to the Court of Spain, outlining the importance of his discovery, was addressed to Santangel, the chancellor of Aragon, one of three important conversos in the royal court. Others were Gabriel Sanchez, the royal treasurer, and Juan Cabrero, the king’s chamberlain. Additionally, Jews were responsible for the technology that made the explorations possible: Abraham Zacuto developed astronomical tables, almanacs, and maps, while Levi ben Gerson is credited with the invention of the sea-quadrant or Jacob’s staff, used to guide marine courses.
The theme of this part of my journey could well be exploration. I had not realized thatthe first trip to circumnavigate the world originated from Seville: in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan began his voyage from the very spot where I stand on the bank of river; crossing the San Telmo bridge, you can see the armillary sphere that commemorates mile zero of that voyage.
“Seville in the 16th century was the mercantile center of the western world, and its river was the main maritime route for Atlantic traffic for more than 200 years…Seville was known as ‘the city where the world’s heart beats’. Its maritime activity permeated commerce, population, culture, and its own urban development, making it unique,” the visitor bureau notes (www.visitasevilla.es/en/history/guadalquivir-river).
Like Spain, Jewish heritage in Portugal is complicated. Jews lived here from 5th to 15th centuries – 1000 years before being expelled. After being kicked out of Spain, many Jews went first to Portugal, but Portugal adopted Spain’s Inquisition in 1496 in order to consummate a politically-advantageous wedding. Like in Spain, many Portuguese Jews pretended to convert to Christianity but remained secret Jews.
At one end of Praça da Liberdade, Porto’s elegant Belle Époque main square, is Porto-Palacio das Cardoas Hotel, the first luxury hotel in the historic city center. It was opened in 2011 after being converted from the 18th century palace home of a wealthy Jewish merchant, Manuel Cardoso dos Santos, who bought the property from an order of monks when they were forced from the city. It was originally built as the Lóios Monastery.
According to the New York Jewish Travel Guide: Porto, Portugal’s second city, is home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the country. The city was spared the destruction of the 1755 earthquake that destroyed much of Lisbon. Porto remained largely intact so you can see the narrow streets and balconied houses of former Jewish quarter with street names like “Rua Monte Judeus,” “Escadinhas do Monte dos Judeus,” and Pátio das Escadinhas do Monte dos Judeus.”
The main synagogue stood on the Escadas da Vitória, a place still locally called “Escadas da Esnoga,” meaning “stairway to the synagogue.” A plaque that marks this site.
Nearby, there is an ancient Jewish cemetery at Passeio das Virtudes. It was there that the largest numbers of Conversos (also known as Marranos), descendants of Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Inquisition but secretly practicing Judaism, lived.
But the Jewish experience here in Porto – I am surprised to learn – is relatively modern: in the 1920s Porto became the center of a modest Jewish cultural revival led by an army captain, Arturo Carlos de Barros Bastos. A Converso, Bastos converted to Orthodox Judaism at the age of 33. He became known as the “Portuguese Dreyfus” because he was dismissed from the Army for being a Jew.
Basto established a Yeshiva in Porto, which ran for nine years educating more than 90 students. This is what brought him to the attentionof the government, especially after an estimated 10,000 families across Portugal admitted to practicing Judaism in secret. False charges were brought against the Captain and he was court-martialed, stripped of his rank and was forced to close the Yeshiva. After leaving the Army, Captain Basto established a synagogue in Porto.
As the congregation grew he moved into a new building donated by Elly Kadoorie, a wealthy Sephardic Jew. The Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue was built on property bought and donated by Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Paris.
The Hebrew part of its name, “Mekor Haim,” means “Source of Life,” while “Kadoorie” is the surname of Hong Kong-born Jews who donated the funds to complete the building, in honor of a deceased family member, Laura Kadoorie, who descended from Portuguese Jews. Her husband, Sir Elly Kadoorie, died in 1944 and is still the Honorary President of the Israeli Community of Oporto, the New York Jewish Travel Guide reported.
The Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue, built with donations from Jews from all over the world and with décor that blends Art Deco and Moroccan, was inaugurated in 1938, at a time when synagogues were being burned in Germany. It is the largest synagogue in the Iberian Peninsula and one of the largest in Europe.
Indeed, I learn that during World War II, Portugal gave refuge to thousands of Jews escaping Nazi persecution. Their existence has been legal in Portugal since 1912, and today there are Jewish synagogues in Lisbon, Porto, Trancoso and Belmonte (https://www.visitportugal.com/en/content/jewish-legacy).
You can take a Jewish Heritage walking tour of Porto
New York City
How fitting that our next and final stop on this 23-day, 10-country around-the-world mystery tour is New York City, where many of these displaced descendants of Iberian Jews wound up, generations later from Holland, Brazil and the Indies.
Indeed, there is some suggestion that secret Jews (Marranos) were on board Columbus’ ships, and established the first white settlement in the New World, on the island of Jamaica.
You can still visit Congregation Shearith Israel, the first Jewish congregation established in North America. It was founded in 1654 (just 34 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plimoth) by 23 Jews, mostly of Spanish and Portuguese origin, who had been living in Recife, Brazil. But when Portuguese defeated the Dutch for control of Recife, bringing the Inquisition to Brazil, the Jews left. Some returned to Amsterdam where they had originated; others went to Caribbean islands including St. Thomas, Jamaica, Surinam and Curacao. The group that came to New Amsterdam arrived in 1654.
“They were not welcomed by Governor Peter Stuyvesant, who did not wish to permit Jews to settle in New Amsterdam. However, these pioneers fought for their rights and won permission from the Dutch West India Company to remain here in 1655,” according to the synagogue’s historic notes.
The original synagogue was in the Wall Street area. As New York City continued to grow and the population moved northward, Shearith Israel opened its present building in 1897 – the congregation’s fifth building – on 70th Street and Central Park West, on a plot of land that was previously a duck farm.
The architect was Arnold Brunner, an American-born Jewish architect. The building was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, who created the extraordinary glass windows and planned the interior design and color scheme. (I’ve attended a Purim service there, and walk by it often, on Central Park West.)
On this last day of the Global Scavenger Hunt, still in hunt mode, I walk up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where the task is to find artifacts related to the places we have been. I find myself in an extraordinary exhibit, “The World Between Empires,” which interestingly serves almost as a summary of all the places we had gone, all the cultures we explored, while fitting in some missing archaeological pieces from places like Petra, Jordan.
“The compelling works of art in this exhibition offer a view into how people in the ancient Middle East sought to define themselves during a time of tremendous religious, creative, and political activity, revealing aspects of their lives and communities that resonate some two millennia later,” stated Max Hollein, Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in a video that accompanies the exhibit. “Further, in focusing on an area of the world that has been deeply affected by recent conflicts and the destruction of sites, monuments, and objects, this show also engages with complex questions about the preservation of cultural heritage.”
The exhibition evokes a journey along ancient trade routes, beginning in the southwestern Arabian kingdoms that grew rich from the caravan trade in frankincense and myrrh harvested there and used throughout the ancient world. Camel caravans crossed the desert to the Nabataean kingdom, with its spectacular capital city of Petra, which I have just visited, walking through very much as the caravan travelers would have.
“From here, goods traveled west to the Mediterranean and north and east through regions including Judaea and the Phoenician coast and across the Syrian desert, where the oasis city of Palmyra controlled trade routes that connected the Mediterranean world to Mesopotamia and Iran and ultimately China. In Mesopotamia, merchants transported cargoes down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the Persian Gulf, where they joined maritime trade routes to India. These connections transcended the borders of empires, forming networks that linked cities and individuals over vast distances.
“Across the entire region, diverse local political and religious identities were expressed in art. Artifacts from Judaea give a powerful sense of ancient Jewish identity during a critical period of struggle with Roman rule. Architectural sculptures from the colossal sanctuary at Baalbek and statuettes of its deities reveal the intertwined nature of Roman and ancient Middle Eastern religious practices. Funerary portraits from Palmyra represent the elite of an important hub of global trade. Wall paintings and sculptures from Dura-Europos on the River Euphrates illustrate the striking religious diversity of a settlement at the imperial frontier. And in Mesopotamia, texts from the last Babylonian cuneiform libraries show how ancient temple institutions waned and finally disappeared during this transformative period.”
Among the astonishing artifacts that I come upon is the “unique” Magdala Stone, discovered in a first-century synagogue at Migdal (ancient Magdala) with imagery that refers to the Temple in Jerusalem and wall paintings from a church in Dura-Europos that are the earliest securely dated images of Jesus.
From my visits in Athens and Petra, particularly, I appreciate this synergy between trade, migration, environmental sustainability and technology (in Petra’s Archaeology Museum, you learn how the ability to control water supply was key to the city’s development) and the links to economic prosperity and political power, and the rise of art, culture, and community. (I recall the notes from the National Archaeology Museum in Athens that made this very point.)
Happening upon this exhibit made the travel experiences we had to these extraordinary places all the more precious.
It is a humbling experience, to be sure, to go to the origins of the great civilizations, fast forward to today. How did they become great? How did they fall? Greatness is not inevitable or forever. Empires rise and fall. Rulers use religion, art and monuments to establish their credibility and credentials to rule; successors blot out the culture and re-write history.
For additional information visitGlobalScavengerHunt.com or contact GreatEscape Adventures Inc. at 310-281-7809.
I was surprised to discover during a Global Scavenger Hunt mystery tour around the world in 2019 that I was actually on an odyssey of the Jewish Diaspora. It wasn’t my intention or my mission but everywhere we went (we only learn where we are next going when we are told to get to the airport), I found myself tracing a route set by trade (and permitted occupations), exile and refuge.
It started in Vietnam and then just about every place we touched down: in Yangon, Myanmar, where I visited the last synagogue in that country (it’s a historic landmark and still serves a handful of congregants); in the ancient desert city of Petra, Jordan, I learned of a connection to Moses and the Exodus miracle (the first Diaspora?); in Athens, where I discovered a synagogue, serving a Jewish community that had existed in Athens at least since the 3rd C BC and possibly as early as 6th C BC, near where the world’s first “parliament” would have been.
Then on to Morocco, a country that has just established full diplomatic relations with Israel. The news was particularly interesting to me because Morocco has a long-standing tradition, going back centuries of welcoming Jews, harboring Jews and even today, protecting the cemeteries and the few remaining synagogues, as I discovered for myself during the Global Scavenger Hunt:
Before it gets too dark, we make our way through the souks to find the Mellah, the Jewish Quarter and the synagogue (which happens also to be one of the scavenges on our around-the-world mystery tour).
We weave through the maze of alleys – asking people who point us in a direction (just as we are supposed to do under the Global Scavenger Hunt rules) – a kindly fellow leaves his stall to lead us down narrow alleyway to Laazama Synagogue, which is still a functioning synagogue but also serves as the city’s Jewish Museum.
After Jews were expelled from Spain by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand in 1492, Rabbi Yitzhag Daloya came to Marrakesh, notes describe. He became president of the court and head of the “deportee” community in Marrakesh and founded the “Tzlat Laazama,” Synagogue of Deportees”, shortly after his arrival.
But the Moroccan Jewish community is much older than the Spanish Inquisition, actually dating back to King Solomon and the Roman period. Marrakesh was founded in 1062 by Joseph Ibn Tasifin, ruler of the Halmorabidim, who allowed Jewish settlement in the city. The Jewish community was “renewed” in 1269, headed by Rabbi Yahuda Jian, originally from southern Spain. The Atlas Jews remained the majority of the community even after the Jews from Spain and Portugal settled in Marrakesh.
The situation changed in the 16th century when Marrakesh became a major center for Marranos (secret Jews) who wished to practice Judaism openly. Spanish and Portuguese Marrakesh Jews lived in their own neighborhoods until all local Jews, some 35,000, were collected by order of the King, in 1557, and resettled in the Mellah (a walled community). In the 19th century, the population increased in the Mellah after refugees from the Atlas Mountains arrived, becoming the largest Jewish community in Morocco. At one time, there were 40 synagogues here.
The synagogue is beautifully decorated with tile, a courtyard ringed with study rooms, a music room, living quarters. There is a video about history of Jewish community in Marrakesh. The photos on the walls are interesting – the faces of the Moroccan Jews are indistinguishable from the Arab Moroccans.
Moroccan Jews have largely left the country – the Moroccan Jewish Diaspora counts more than 1 million members in four corners of the world, “a diaspora that continues to cultivate ties to their homeland, Morocco.” (Morocco’s diplomatic and trade alliance with Israel should help.) Indeed, we come upon a woman with her sister-in-law and mother who left Marrakesh first for Casablanca and now lives in Paris; her brother is still a member of the synagogue’s leadership – she shows us his chair. Her grandfather is buried in the nearby Jewish cemetery.
From the synagogue, we walk to the Jewish cemetery, Beth Mo’ed Le’kol Chai, which should have been closed, but the guard lets us in.
Founded in 1537, the cemetery spans 52 hectares and is the largest Jewish burial site in Morocco, with some 20,000 tombs including tombs of 60 “saints” and devotees who taught Torah to the communities of Marrakesh and throughout Morocco.
The arrangement of the graves is “unique” to the city of Marrakesh. There is a children’s section, where 7000 children who died of Typhus are buried; a separate men’s section and a woman’s section while around the perimeter are graves of the pious, the judges and scholars of the city who are believed to provide protection for all those buried.
Cautioned that the Fez is a complete maze that requires a local guide, we set out with Hamid, theoretically licensed by the local tourist office. At our first stop, at the golden doors to the palace, he relates how Jews made refugees when expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492 were invited by the sultan to settle in Fez in order to develop the city, and settle the nomadic Berbers. The sultan gave them land adjacent to the palace and promised protection. To show appreciation, the Jewish community created ornate brass doors for the palace with the Star of David surrounded by the Islamic star.
He takes us to Fez el-Jdid (the “new part of the city”, which is still a few hundred years old) to visit the Mellah -the Jewish Quarter. The oldest Jewish Quarter in Morocco, the Mellah of Fez dates back to 1438, though very few Jews live here today, most having moved to Casablanca, France or Israel; there are some 80 Jews left in Fez, but live in the new city, Ville Nouvelle.
This community continued even into World War II, when the Sultan gave Jews citizenship and protected them from the Nazis. Indeed, Morocco’s Jewish population peaked in the 1940s but since the 1950s and 1960s, following the establishment of Israel, shrank to fewer than 5,000 today.
Hamid leads us through winding narrow alleyways to the Ibn Danan synagogue. The synagogue was restored in 1998-99 with the help of UNESCO, American Jews and American Express. From the top floor, you can see the Jewish cemetery.
Nearby is al Fassiyine Synagogue, which a plaque notes, “belongs to the Jews (Beldiyine) Toshabirg, native Jews who lived in Fez before the arrival of the Megorashimns, the expelled Jews from Spain in 1492. The building, covering 170 sq meters, was built in the 17th century. It includes a small entrance hall which leads to a prayer hall housing some furnished rooms on the mezzanine level. It has been used successively as a workshop for carpets and then a gym. Despite these different uses and the degradation of its state, it still keeps its original aspect.”
The synagogue was restored in 2010-2011 through the efforts of Simon Levy, former general secretary of the Judeo-Moroccan Heritage Foundation, the Jewish community of Fez, Jacques Toledano Foundation and the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Germany.
Morocco’s Islamist Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane inaugurated the reopening of the historic synagogue on February 13, 2013, in which he conveyed the wish of Morocco’s King Muhammad VI that all the country’s synagogues be refurbished and serve as “centers for cultural dialogue.”
Hamid tells me that an adviser to the King and the ex-minister of Tourism were both Jewish.
The tourism minister had a lot to do with putting Morocco on the map as an international tourist destination. The king, who studied at Harvard, in 2000 set a goal of 10 million tourists.
“Morocco has no oil or gold. It had no highway or airport and didn’t exist except for hashish,” Hamid says. “The king opened Morocco to foreign companies, giving them five years duty-free. They were drawn by a peaceful country, a gateway to Africa. Foreign investors rebuilt the road to Marrakesh, turning it into an international city for the wealthy, like Europe.” Fez also seems to be benefiting – there is lots of restoration and new construction, at Riad el Yacout where we are staying.
As we weave through the alleyways, he shows us the indentation on the doorposts of houses where a mezuzah would have been placed, now the home of Muslims (Jews apparently weren’t evicted from these homes, rather, they moved to the suburbs; what Jews remain in Fez live in the new city, Ville Nouvelle).
Arriving in Gibraltar from Morocco, it is almost culture shock to instantly find yourself in a British Brigadoon – back in time. It is all the more surprising to learn of Gibraltar’s sizeable Jewish community in a population of only 36,000.
I wrongly assume that Gibraltar’s Jewish heritage goes back to the Spanish Inquisition – after all, it is but steps away from Spain – but Gibraltar’s Jewish community actually traces the same route that I have come, from Morocco. Jews were readmitted to the tiny peninsula on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula after the British took the territory from Spain in 1704. By the mid 18th century, the community comprised about one third of the Gibraltar’s population. Today, the Gibraltarian Jewish community numbers around 600, many of whom are Sephardim whose roots go back to Morocco. (https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/united-kingdom/gibraltar/)
On The Rock, which is literally the plateau on top of Gibraltar where many of the historic and nature sites are found, you can follow a trail to Jew’s Gate which leads to the Jewish cemetery tucked away behind trees that was in use up until 1848; it offers “a fascinating piece of history that reflects the important role the Jewish people have played in molding Gibraltar’s history”). I find four synagogues:
Sha’ar Hashamayim – Esnoga Grande or Great Synagogue, the main synagogue in Gibraltar, originally built in the 1720s, was destroyed during heavy storms in 1766 and rebuilt in 1768, then destroyed again by gunfire during the Great Siege of Gibraltar, May 17, 1781, and reconstructed again, after a fire in 1812; Ets Hayim – Esnoga Chica or The Little Synagogue, dating from 1759; Nefutsot Yehoda – Esnoga Flamenca or Flemish Synagogue, opened in 1799 and rebuilt after serious damage from fire in the early 20th century, in the Sephardic style; and Esnoga Abudarham – Abudarham Synagogue, established in the early 19th century by immigrants from Morocco.
From Gibraltar, I basically walk from my hotel, The Rock, into Spain, where I take a bus to Seville for the next part of the Global Scavenger Hunt and my Jewish Odyssey.
Morocco has just established full diplomatic relations with Israel. But the news was interesting to me because Morocco has a long-standing tradition, going back centuries of welcoming Jews, harboring Jews and even today, protecting the cemeteries and the few remaining synagogues, as I was surprised to discover during a Global Scavenger Hunt mystery tour around the world in 2019. Each destination was a surprise (we only learn where we are next going when we are told to get to the airport), but most surprising was to find myself on an odyssey of the Jewish Diaspora. It wasn’t my intention or my mission but everywhere we went, I found myself tracing a route set by trade (and permitted occupations), exile and refuge.
It started in Vietnam and then just about every place we touched down: in Myanmar, where I visited the last synagogue in that country, in Yangon, (it’s a historic landmark and still serves a handful of congregants); in Athens, where I discovered evidence of a synagogue that served a Jewish community that had existed in Athens at least since the 3rd century BCE and possibly as early as 6th century BCE (probably dating from the Babylonian Exile in 598 BCE), near where the world’s first “parliament” would have been; in Petra, Jordan, I discovered a connection to Moses and the Exodus (the first Diaspora?).
On to Morocco, in Marrakech and Fez, where I learned that the king literally invited Jews expelled by the Spanish during the Inquisition, and the monarch hundreds of years later stood up to the Nazis during the Holocaust; in Gibraltar, a British territory of just 36,000 inhabitants, where Jews continue to make up 2% of the population and where there are four active synagogues dating back hundreds of years; then on to Seville, Spain and Porto, Portugal, where Jews after living in Iberia for hundreds of years, were expelled in the Inquisition.
And finally, coincidentally this around-the-world mystery tour concluded in New York City, where many of the descendents of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal ultimately settled, and where you can still visit the synagogue of America’s oldest congregation, Congregation Shearith Israel, founded in 1654.
This Global Scavenger Hunt around-the-world mystery tour turned out to be an unexpected journey following in the footsteps of the Jewish Diaspora in unexpected places. Come along with me:
I learn that, though Jews have been in Vietnam and Judaism practiced in Vietnam since the late 19th century during French colonization, there are only about 300 Jews left in Vietnam, most of whom are expatriates (or descendants), with virtually no native Vietnamese converts. By 1939, there would have been about 1,000 Jews, but under the rule of Vichy France, in 1940, the French Governor implemented the “Statute of Jews,” limiting Jews to specific professions, dismissing government employees and workers in other professions and expelling Jews from schools. After the war and French expulsion, these limits were overturned, and the Jewish population increased to 1,500. In 2006, Chabad opened a center in Ho Chi Minh City and in 2014, in Hanoi.
I learn of the last remaining synagogue in Myanmar while looking at a tourist map of Yangon on the flight back from my Global Scavenger Hunt sojourn that took me to the temple-city of Bagan and villages-on-stilts on Inle Lake. I race to visit before it closes at 2 pm (open daily except Sunday).
By the time I get here, it is 1:40 pm. It is a lovely synagogue in the Sephardic style, built in 1896. The Jewish community in Yangon numbered as many as 2500 before the mass migration of World War II; today, there are only five families (about 30 people). The Samuels, one of the last remaining Jewish families, has maintained the synagogue for generations, a plaque notes. Getting there is interesting, going through street markets with sounds of chickens (for sale), live fish (one almost got away), and the scent of spices.
With time constraints and a mad dash to Petra from Amman, and lack of top-of-mind mission, I don’t specifically seek out Jewish sites or history in Jordan, but suffice to say, the Jewish heritage is a layer of Jordan’s landscape going back 4,000 years, back to Biblical times. It is linked, also, to the Roman occupation, and we get to visit Roman ruins in the heart of Amman. Though there are no legal bans on Jews, there are currently no Jewish residents, either.
Petra, an archaeological jewel, I later learn, has a remarkable connection to Moses and the Exodus from Egypt: the siq – that 1.5-mile-long stony cleft you go through to enter the ancient city (which made it defensible), is believed to be the place where Moses performed the miracle of drawing water from a stone during the Israelites’ exodus in the desert after leaving Egypt. Archaeological evidence comes from the fact that the chasm in which the city was built was named after Moses himself—Wadi Musa, or Valley of Moses – and is believed to be the source of water that supplied the desert city, making habitation possible. As you walk through, you can see where a channel system to direct water had been carved in the stone (https://arzaworld.com/israel-travel-guide/israel-travel-destinations/city-of-petra-jordan.aspx)
We are only in Athens for a day, and I retrace some of my steps from a previous trip when I took a Context walking tour with a guide, Vassilas. We had met in the district known today as Monasteraki, but as we walked through the flea market area, he mentioned it was originally called Yusurum, named for a Jewish family of tradesmen who built a store in the area. Athens did not have a “Jewish Quarter” per se, he told me, sensing my interest, but just a few blocks away, there once were a few Jewish synagogues, only one that is still in use today.
There is limited information about Jews in Athens during antiquity; most of the Jews who lived in Greece up until modern times came after the Spanish Inquisition, in1492.
But as we walked through the Agora, the ancient marketplace and political center where humankind had its first House of Parliament, he pointed to where it is believed to have been a synagogue, serving a Jewish community that had existed in Athens at least since 3rd C BCE and possibly as early as 6th C BCE (very possibly dating from the Babylonian Exile in 598 BCE). This is based on finding a sign etched in marble – in essence, a sign for the synagogue, which comes from the Greek words “synagein,” meaning “to bring together” and the same root word as “agora” which means “a place of assembly.” (Context Travel’s “Everyday Greeks in Ancient Times” walking tour, www.contexttravel.com, info@contexttravel.com, 800-691-6036)
He pointed me to Athens’ Jewish Museum, where I found a reproduction of that original stone sign. There I was surprised to learn that the Greek Jews is the oldest Jewish community in Europe. (Jewish Museum of Greece, Nikis 39, Athens 105 57. Phone: 210 32 25 582, e-mail: info@jewishmuseum.gr, visit www.jewishmuseum.gr.)
On another walking tour, with a local guide, through the city’s free “Athens with a Native” program, Constantine E. Cavoulacos, whose family has a prominent real estate development company (his uncle was an engineer on the Jewish Museum building) also sensing my interest, brought me to Ermou Street where two synagogues – old (Ete Haim) and new (Beth Shalom) face each other. It is a quiet street, set off from the busy neighborhood only a couple of streets beyond, but near (as it turns out), the Agora. Also close by, is a Holocaust Memorial – a star exploding under a small grove of trees, with the name of each Greek city where Jewish communities were cut down. (www.thisisathens.org)
In Athens, Jews did not live in a Jewish Quarter, like in Corfu, Rhodes or Thessalonki, but lived around Athens, though they tended to live near the synagogue.
It is not known how many Jews lived in Greece at its peak – during the Holocaust, archives were burned. But prior to the war, Thessaloniki had 70,000 Jews; there were 29 communities.
Today, there are 5,000 Jews living in Greece – 3000 of them in Athens (a tiny number compared to the population). There are nine communities that are most active, with Jewish schools.
Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com
There can be nothing more full of hope and promise for the future in this holiday season for a traveler than a gift that speaks to that wanderlust. The holiday spirit is manifesting differently this year, but nonetheless splendorous.
And travel companies offer Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals which can make that bucket list that much less costly but still as valuable. There are so many that you should just check the websites of travel companies, tour operators, hospitality companies you are interested in, but here are some examples:
&Beyond is offering 20% discount on its series of ‘7 Wonders in 7 Days’ itineraries designed to offer a longer stay in one destination with less travel time for travel dates through Dec. 15, 2021. Each itinerary includes conservation and community experiences as a way to do good while travelling. The discount will apply to a selection of itineraries across Africa and South Americaon inquiries made on Cyber Monday (Nov. 30) only. https://www.andbeyond.com/cyber-monday/
G Adventures is offering up to 21% off select worldwide tours (like Costa Rica, Iceland, Peru), $1 upfront deposits and 21% off My Own Room (gaadventures.com, 800-280-5214).
REI (which I love for clothing and specialized equipment, especially when they offer sales) is also an adventure travel company, and is offering 10 percent off 2021 private departures booked by Nov. 23. For groups of four or more, the cost per person is actually the same as our regular trips. Call for an estimate: 877-326-0470, travel@rei.com.
Hurtigruten’s Black Friday sale offers savings up to 50% off pp, and book with discounted deposit of $500 pp. Hurtigruten operates premium expedition cruises on small, purpose-built, hybrid ships designed specifically to sail in remote waters and reduce carbon footprint to Alaska, Antarctica, the Caribbean & Central America, Greenland, Iceland, North America, the Northwest Passage, Norway, South America, and Svalbard (Hurtigruten.com, 888-412-2590)
The White Elephant Resorts portfolio, including Jared Coffin House, The Cottages, The Wauwinet, White Elephant, and the Boat Basin in Nantucket, and newly opened White Elephant Palm Beach in Florida (debuted November 4), will offer 20% off the best available rate on bookings made from Black Friday through Cyber Monday for travel through Dec. 31, 2121. (www.whiteelephantresorts.com/ Booking code: Cyber)
Island Outpost properties in Jamaica, Strawberry Hill and The Caves, is offering 30% off bookings (minimum two nights) made from Black Friday through Cyber Monday (for travel January 4-December 19, 2021, with holiday blackouts).
The Setting Inn, Napa Valley will offer 30% off all three-night bookings made from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, including $100 credit at Bottega Napa Valley restaurant and $100 transportation credit with Beau Wine Tours for travel Nov. 27, 2020-March 31, 2021.
The Meritage Resort & Spa and Vista Collina Resort & Spa will offer 21% off all two-night bookings made from Black Friday through December 1, 2020 for travel through April 30, 2021. The Meritage Collection will also donate $21 per stay to the First Responders Children’s Foundation to support the families of first responders. https://meritagecollection.com/specials/black-friday-offer
Gift the gift of genealogy: start tracing roots for a future trip to discover heritage. Ancestry.com is offering 20% discount on gift memberships (through Nov. 25). Then, trace your family story on genealogy tours, created in collaboration with Ancestry, where each trip includes an AncestryDNA® kit and pre-trip family history review and a genealogist from AncestryProGenealogists® accompanies your tour group to answer questions about your heritage. (https://www.goaheadtours.com/travel-styles/heritage-tours, 800-590-1161; check Black Friday deals).
Dromoland Castle in County Clare, Ireland, is offering a new genealogy package for families looking to trace their Irish roots.
Heritage tours are a whole genre. Here’s another: Dromoland Castle, a 16th century castle-turned-hotel set in the countryside of County Clare, Ireland is offering a new genealogy package for families looking to trace their Irish roots. After filling out their family history, the in-house genealogist, Lorna Maloney, will host a private 45-minute Zoom call to give a genealogy review, then prepares the full results along with next steps on familial connections or travel suggestions. This can take place over Zoom or, ideally, at the Castle over tea and scones. The genealogy package starts at £220 for the Zoom conference, and nightly rates at the hotel start at $367 per night, double occupancy. (dromoland.ie)
Travel Gifts That Don’t Require Travel
Context Travel (contexttravel.com), known for erudite cultural walking tours, is featuring online cooking classes: Italian Cooking with Gina Tringali, Cooking with Clementine Haxby. Other seminars feature music and art. You can give the gift of learning with a Context gift card (https://conversations.contexttravel.com/products/context-conversations-gift-card)
The South Africa-based adventure, ecotourism and safari company, &beyond, is offering a slew of travel gifts that don’t require travel, including virtual experiences such as three-hour safaris; private, one-on-one sessions with conservation and marine experts; a virtual, interactive birding masterclass with leading birding specialists; virtual cooking masterclasses; a safari-themed children’s party; virtual session with certified nature and forest meditation therapy guide; yoga sessions; a virtual tango lesson; authentic African handicrafts and luxury accessories; or give a voucher for future travel (www.andbeyond.com/magazine/10-gifts-that-dont-require-travel/, andbeyondsafarishopping.com/)
Travel Gifts that Give Back
Many major travel companies that adhere to the principles of sustainability and responsible travel also are deliberate about giving back to communities and conserving heritage and resources. Among them Pure Adventures, Overseas Adventure Travel (Grand Circle Foundation, www.oattravel.com/oat-difference/grand-circle-foundation), Butterfield & Robinson, Austin Adventures (Wheels of Change) and Wildland Adventures (just acquired by Austin Adventures, which has Travelers Conservation Trust, www.tct.global) and The Travel Corporation (ttc.com), which is a family of 40 travel and hospitality companies.
TTC’s charitable foundation, TreadRight, is using holiday gift giving to benefit its project partners and sustainable initiatives around the world – artisans and conservation projects hard-hit by the collapse of international travel. TreadRight is bringing these artisans to you:
Butterfield & Robinson also has a foundation that supports conservation and cultural projects (https://www.butterfield.com/about/we-give-back/) as well as an B&R Artisan Marketplace promotes the small businesses and independent artists that you would otherwise encounter on trips (https://www.butterfield.com/br-artisan-marketplace/)
Give the Gift That Keeps Giving
Travel is a gift that keeps giving, living inside with memories and life-enhancing, life-changing experiences, with developing a global citizen value system, and forging bonds among family and friends. A way to immortalize those memorable travel experiences and family events is to create a photo book (the entire process online). MilkBooks.com, a New Zealand-based company, produces superb quality photo books and albums, offering great value, excellent customer service with online chats or by phone, and timely delivery (you need about 2-3 weeks), and offers discounts for first-timers.
What makes Long Island’s American Airpower Museum, located at historic Republic Airport in Farmingdale, so different from other aviation museums is that this is so much more than a static display of vintage aircraft. This is living history: just about every day you visit, you can see these historic aircraft fly – you can even purchase a seat.
Long Island’s only flying military aviation museum, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, reopened after its COVID-19 hiatus, with new health protocols and precautions.
Its impressive collection was started by Jeffrey Clyman, president of the museum and the foundation.
His first acquisition was the P10-17 WWII training biplane which used to fly in air shows. His second was the Avenger. The third, the AT-6 “Texan” came from the Spanish air force where it was used for desert warfare in the Sahara
Among them, the Grumman TBM Avenger, the same plane model flown by President George H.W. Bush in WWII in which he was shot down (the other two crew members did not survive); you can see where Bush autographed this plane. Known as the “ship killer,” so many Japanese ships were destroyed by the torpedoes it carried, that upon seeing it coming, crew would jump off, the museum’s publicist, Bob Salant, tells me during my visit on reopening day.
You can actually buy a seat for a flight in the WACO UPF-7 biplane (the initials stand for Weaver Aircraft Company of Ohio) and a North American AT-6 Texan, which give you the unparalleled experience of flying with an open cockpit. You can also buy a seat in a D-Day reenactment flying aboard the WWII Veteran Douglas C-47 Gooney Bird, which carried parachutists – you wear an appropriate uniform, there is the radio speech of President Eisenhower sending the troops into this fateful battle, and while you don’t actually parachute, at the end, you are given a card that says whether you lived or died.
That’s what “Living history” means to the American Airpower Museum.
Indeed, just about all the aircraft you see in the hangar and on the field (a few are on loan), are working aircraft and have to be flown to be maintained, so any time you visit, you are likely to see planes flying.
Among the planes that played an important role in history is the “Mis-Hap” – a North American B25 Mitchell bomber that few in the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. It was General Hap Arnold’s personal plane (subsequent owners included Howard Hughes).
Another is the Macon Belle, on view in a fascinating exhibit that pays homage to the Tuskegee Airmen, one of whom, William Johnson is a Glen Cove resident. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII. They flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa, earning more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses.
2020 was anticipated to be a banner year for AAM. Museum aircraft were scheduled to participate in historic events marking the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII and honoring U.S. Veterans who made the Allied victory possible. As they have done for the last 17 years, AAM’s WWII airplanes were going to appear in the Annual Jones Beach Airshow. And it must be noted that on May 24th 2020, the American Airpower Museum celebrated its 20th anniversary in isolation.
Instead, the museum had to shut down along with every other museum and attraction in the state because of the coronavirus. It has reopened with health protocols that include filling out a questionnaire and having a temperature check at the entrance; requiring masks and social distancing throughout the museum.
Certain interactive exhibits have been closed, but you can still climb stairs to see inside cockpits, and walk through the Douglas C-47B. Built in 1935 and in service since 1936, the DC3 started as one of the first commercial civilian airliners. It was best known for being used in the Berlin Airlift, dropping food, clothing and medical supplies to Berliners suffering under the Soviet occupation. This C47 was one of the few flyable C47s with a paratrooper configuration, and dropped troops for the D-Day invasion. The plane is dubbed “Second Chance” possibly because after World War II, it was sold to the State of Israel and saw more than 30 years in the Israeli military (very possibly flew in the 1967 war). Today, the C-47B is used in D-Day reenactments.
There are several excellent exhibits, including one showcasing the WASPs – the Women Airforce Service Pilots who were used to fly planes to their missions. Another focuses on women war correspondents, among them, Martha Gellhorn, considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century, reporting on virtually every major world conflict over her 60-year career (she was also the third wife of novelist Ernest Hemingway).
There are also several fighter jets on loan from the USAF Museum, including a Republic F-84 Thunderjet; Republic RT-84 Thunderstreak, Republic RF-084 Thunderflash, Republic F105 Thunderchief, and General Dynamics F-111.
Clyman, who started his museum in New Jersey, moved it to Farmingdale, Long Island, the “cradle of aviation,” where many of these planes were built, and where the people who built them, maintained them and flew them, still lived. Many of the docents as well as the pilots are former Republic workers and veterans.
“My dad was a combat pilot in WWII. So was my uncle. My mom was a nurse,” Clyman tells me. “But just as the 1920s followed WWI, and the 1950s after WWII, they didn’t talk about their experiences in war until they were about to die.” His mission is to not only legacy of the planes, but honor the people.
“Some 65 years ago, the current home of the American Airpower Museum at Republic Airport was a crucial part of the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’. Home to Republic Aviation, the complex produced over 9,000 P-47 Thunderbolts in Farmingdale,” the museum’s website explains.
“Today, no American aviation museum with a squadron of operational World War II aircrafts has a more appropriate setting for its flight operations. Taxing to the very runways and hangars that dispatched Thunderbolts to war, vintage aircrafts recreate those turbulent years and allow the public to watch these planes in their natural environment – the air.”
The hangar where the museum is located is now part of a historic preservation district, as a result of the effort of Senator Charles Schumer and then-Congressman Steve Israel.
There are uniforms, equipment, even two Nikon cameras adapted for use by astronauts that flew in the Space Shuttle.
Clyman said it has always been AAM’s mission to honor the legacy of those who gave all to preserve our freedoms. “We’re pleased to announce we recently resumed maintenance and inspection of our aircraft so that much anticipated flight operations can begin with our grand reopening event. We also promise a flying salute to our Veterans and front line workers very soon,” he said.
At the reopening on August 1, visitors were treated to aircraft displays and flight operations of WWII AT-6s, WACO UPF-7, and TBM Avenger.
The museum is open to only 55 visitors at one time. There will be a case by case increase should the flight line be open, to increase the number of visitors at one time. Face masks must be worn at all times by anyone who will work, and visit the museum (masks are for sale in the gift shop for anyone who does not have one). Visitors have their temperature taken as they enter, and are encouraged to wash hands, or use hand sanitizer (hand sanitizer is available in the gift shop, and by the restrooms). Social distancing will be observed and the floors have been marked to denote 6 feet spacing. Restrooms and canteen areas are regularly cleaned.
The C-45 cockpits are not currently open, but the Flight Simulator may be available for use on a case by case basis, and cleaned after each use. Docents will also guide visitors accessing certain aircraft and limit the number of visitors at one time.
One of the docents is Steven Delgado who came to New York from Puerto Rico at the age of 15, was drafted to go to Vietnam in 17 and served in a parachutists unit. “I learned English in the army). When he returned, he earned his CPA from NYU and became a volunteer fire fighter.
The museum, a 501 (C3) Nonprofit Educational Foundation, is open year-round, rain or shine.
Admission for adults is $13, seniors and veterans $10 and children $8.
by
Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com
The
2017 Women’s March may have been the largest single protest in history, but
women have been marching literally and virtually for 200 years. And for 200
years, the march, the campaign for women’s rights has been shorthand for
voting, education, health care, equal pay, workers rights, civil rights,
environmental justice, gun safety. Yes, there was that period when temperance
was a priority, as well. But it has only been in the 1970s, that Feminism – the
fight for women’s equality – took hold, and with it, the fight for the
essential right: reproductive freedom.
The
new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society simply
called “Women March” (part of The Women’s Suffrage NYC Centennial
Consortium, www.WomensSuffrageNYC.org) traces
this long arc which has not always moved toward justice or equality. Indeed,
progress, on just about every front, has been in brief spurts of enlightenment.
In reality, that long arc is more zig-zags and a maze with brick walls to block
progress.
From
the beginning, women directed their activism to abolition of slavery, labor
rights, working conditions and pay equity, civil rights, health, education,
property rights, custody, rights for Native Americans – issues regarded as “moral imperative.”
“Women seized on the notion that women had a moral power, beyond home, a moral imperative to effect public policy,” said Jeanne Gardner Gutierrez, curatorial scholar in women’s history at the New-York Historical Society.
Without the right to vote, they took
advantage of the Constitution’s right to petition Congress – until Congress
said they would ignore any anti-slavery petition.
“It was infuriating. The one right
available to women, guaranteed by Constitution, swept away. They realized that
moral suasion has limits.”
Voting
rights was not at the core of the women’s activism, which was hardly a movement
then. Even at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the women leaders – mainly
Quaker women who already had a measure of equality within their religious
society – had to be persuaded (by
Frederick Douglass) to include the right to vote among their demands, enunciated in the Declaration of Sentiments, that
mimicked the Declaration of Independence. Their demands centered on equal pay
and rights to own property and have control of one’s own earnings, a growing
issue for women who were being employed in factories and for the first time
earning their own wage. Many women did not sign on. It may surprise many to
learn (as I did when visiting the Roosevelt historic site at Hyde Park) that
Eleanor Roosevelt was not an early supporter of suffrage.
During
the Civil War – as in the Revolutionary War and later World War II – women took
on roles that had been reserved for men: they managed their farms and
businesses while husbands and fathers were off fighting, they were nurses, and
organized fundraisers showing they could manage large financial projects (Sanitary Fair raised $1 million for union, the treasurer was
a woman).
After the Civil War, there was a
great debate over whether women should seek the vote, whether under the 15th
amendment which said that men could not be denied the right
to vote simply based on their race,
voting should be a right of citizenship. Women were considered citizens, but
the Supreme Court found that citizenship did not automatically bestow voting
rights.
But a section of the exhibit labeled “Go West Young Woman” notes that in the Western territories, women did have right to vote (and apparently, women had the right to vote briefly in New Jersey, from 1776 to 1807 when the vote was restricted to white men. (See:On the Trail of America’s First Women to Vote)
But
those who think that Hillary Rodham Clinton was the first woman to run for
president (she was the first to run as a major party candidate) might be
surprised to learn that even before women won the right to vote, Victoria
Woodhull was the first woman to run for president as the Equal Rights Party
candidate in 1871. “Despite questions about eligibility to vote, women, she
reasoned, still could run for political office,” the notes read. Lawyer Belva
Lockwood, the first woman to argue before the Supreme Court, followed in 1884
and 1888 on the National Equal Rights Party
ticket and was the first woman to appear on
official ballots, endorsing equal rights, temperance, civil service
reform and citizenship for Native Americans; she won some 4,000 votes.
But
at a certain turning point, the women’s movement realized that moral suasion
wasn’t going to effect real change; the key to getting any of the changes and
rights they wanted was the right to vote.
They
used the latest techniques and technology to build support. Film was new in
1915, and a newsreel agency, Universal Animated Weekly, captured a 1915 strike
for workers rights (we get to see the film on a screen almost life-sized). The
films were distributed and shown in nickelodeons (small movie houses), and were an inexpensive
way to reach working-class people.
It’s
only in the 1960s-1970s, it seems, that women’s rights became equated with
reproductive rights, or more precisely, abortion, and coming almost
simultaneously with The Pill and sexual freedom that broke down gender
barriers. The threat to male domination became much starker – uprooting the
concept of women in the home, being consumers of appliances and cosmetics,
caring for children while men held the economic reins. Women could be fired for
becoming pregnant, could be paid a fraction of the same wage, and relegated
into specific jobs. Check out the classified job listing in the 1970s, and you
will see “male” and “female” listings.
Feminism
really only comes to play in the 1980s, when the right to control one’s own
body, make one’s own choices, have the same right as men to self-determination,
takes hold. The outrage at women as
property, chattel, of objectification comes into focus.
Here
you see a display with the first issue of Ms. Magazine, an organizing force
which reinforced women’s yearning for equal status.
Whereas
in the earliest stages of activism, women’s issues were those that were
considered the “moral imperative” – abolition, workers rights – now it boiled
down to self, individual rights, but exploded back up again: women’s rights are
human rights.
But
for others, feminism boiled down to one word: abortion.
Ms.
Magazine publishes an amazing call to sign on to “a campaign for honesty and
freedom” along with a long list of 53 famous women who declared, “We have had
abortions” On the list: Gloria Steinem, Nora Ephron, Judy Collins, Susan
Sontag, Lillian Hellman, Lee Grant, Gael Greene, Billie Jean King.
The
exhibit follows to the 2017 Women’s March, with some of the posters.
And
just to emphasize the importance of Women’s Suffrage, just outside the exit
door is a computer where you can check on your voter registration.
For as long as there has been a
United States, women have organized to shape the nation’s politics and secure
their rights as citizens. Their collective action has taken many forms, from
abolitionist petitions to industry-wide garment strikes to massive marches for
an Equal Rights Amendment. Women March celebrates the
centennial of the 19th Amendment—which granted women the right to vote in
1920—as it explores the efforts of a diverse array of women to expand American
democracy in the centuries before and after the suffrage victory.
On view in the Joyce B. Cowin
Women’s History Gallery, Women March is curated by Valerie
Paley, the director of the Center for Women’s History and New-York Historical
senior vice president and chief historian, with the Center for Women’s History
curatorial team. The immersive exhibition features imagery and video footage of
women’s collective action over time, drawing visitors into a visceral
engagement with the struggles that have endured into the 21st century.
The exhibition begins with the many
ways women asserted political influence long before they even demanded the
vote. Objects and images demonstrate how they risked criticism for speaking
against slavery, signed petitions against Indian Removal, raised millions to
support the Civil War, and protested reduced wages and longer days. A riveting
recreation of an 1866 speech by African American suffragist and activist
Frances Harper demonstrates the powerful debates at women’s rights conventions.
Absence of the vote hardly prevented women from running for political office:
one engaging item on display is a campaign ribbon for Belva Lockwood, the first
woman to argue before the Supreme Court, who won around 4,000 votes in her own
presidential bid.
Multiple perspectives on the vote,
including African American and working-class activism, are explored, upending
popular assumptions that suffragists were a homogenous group. The 19th
Amendment is hailed as a crucial step forward, but recognized as an incomplete
victory. One photograph shows an African American women’s voter group in
Georgia circa 1920, formed despite wide disenfranchisement, and another shows
women of the League of Women Voters who sought to make suffragists’ goals real
with legislation that addressed issues such as public health and child welfare.
A digital interactive monitor invites visitors to explore the nuances of voting
laws concerning women across the entire United States.
Offering an examination of women’s
activism in the century after the Amendment, the exhibition concludes by
showing how women engaged with issues such as safe workplaces, civil rights,
reproductive justice, and freedom from violence. Photographs and video footage
of women building warships, boycotting segregation, urging voters to register,
and marching for the Equal Rights Amendment convey the urgency of their desire
for full citizenship. The dynamism of women’s collective action continues to
the present day with handmade signs from the 2017 Women’s Marches and footage
of a variety of marches and speeches on topics ranging from reproductive
justice to indigenous peoples’ rights to climate change. Visitors can also
learn about many individuals who have been instrumental in women’s activism
over the past 200 years in an interactive display compiled by New-York
Historical’s Teen Leaders program. Meanwhile, young visitors can explore the
exhibition with a special family guide.
Women
March,
on view through August 30, 2020, is one of four major special exhibitions
mounted by the New-York Historical Society that
address the cornerstones of citizenship and American democracy.
Meet
the Presidentswhich opened on President’s Weekend, is where you can
discover how the role of the president has evolved since George Washington with
a re-creation of the White House Oval Office, decorated “thread by thread”
exactly as it was during Ronald Reagan’s tenure, and a new gallery devoted to
the powers of the presidency.
Colonists, Citizens, Constitutions: Creating the American
Republic explores the important roles
state constitutions have played in the history of our country.
The People Count: The Census in the Making of Americadocuments
the critical role played by the U.S. Census in the 19th century—just in time
for the 2020 Census.
To encourage first-time voters to
learn about our nation’s history and civic as they get ready to vote in the
presidential election, New-York Historical Society offers free admission to the
exhibitions above to college students with ID through 2020, an initiative
supported, in part, by History®. This special program allows college students to
access New-York Historical’s roster of upcoming exhibitions that explore the
pillars of American democracy as they prepare to vote, most of them for the
first time.
“The year 2020 is a momentous time
for both the past and future of American politics, as the centennial of the
19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, coincides with both a
presidential election and a census year,” said Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and
CEO of New-York Historical. “This suite of complementary exhibitions showcases
the ideas and infrastructure behind our American institutions that establish
and protect our fundamental rights to make our voices heard and opinions count.
We hope that all visitors will come away with a wider understanding of the
important role each citizen plays in our democracy.”
The
New-York Historical Society is located at 170 Central Park West at Richard
Gilder Way (77th Street), New York, NY 10024, 212-873-3400, nyhistory.org.
The Women’s Suffrage NYC Centennial
Consortium
One hundred years ago, women earned
the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th amendment. To honor their
fight and commemorate this moment in history, a collective of New York City
cultural organizations has formed the Women’s Suffrage NYC Centennial
Consortium.
The Women’s Suffrage NYC Centennial
Consortium is a collaboration of cultural
organizations citywide that foregrounds exhibitions and programs that,
together, offer a multi-dimensional picture of the history of women’s suffrage
and its lasting, ongoing impact. The consortium has launched www.WomensSuffrageNYC.org to highlight the activities being presented across New
York City throughout 2020.
Founding members are the New-York
Historical Society, the Staten Island Museum, the New York Philharmonic, The
New York Public Library, Brooklyn Historical Society, the Museum of the City of
New York, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Brooklyn
Museum, Park Avenue Armory, and Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical
Garden.
Announced programming includes the
exhibition Women March at the New-York Historical
Society, which explores the efforts of a
wide range of women to expand American democracy in the centuries before and
after the suffrage victory (February 28 – August 30); Women
of the Nation Arise! Staten Islanders in the Fight for Women’s Right to Vote at
the Staten Island Museum, which presents the remarkable stories of local
suffragists acting on the grassroots level to create the momentum necessary for
regional and national change and the bold tactics they employed to win the vote
(March 7 – December 30); the New York Philharmonic’s Project 19—a
multi-season initiative to commission and premiere 19 new works by 19 women
composers, the largest women-only commissioning initiative in history, which
launched earlier this month and continues in the spring (May – June) and
beyond; and 100 Years | 100 Women a partnership of Park
Avenue Armory with National Black Theatre and nine other cultural institutions in
New York City to commission work exploring the complex legacy of the 19th
Amendment 100 years after its ratification from 100 artists who identify as
women or gender non-binary (showcase of commissions on May 16).
The consortium is committed to
showcasing women’s contributions to the past, present, and future. Though many
women were given access to the right to vote 100 years ago, the fight for
equality continues. Their goal is to expand the conversation through meaningful
cultural experiences that convey that all women should be seen, heard, and
counted.
The Women’s Suffrage NYC Centennial
Consortium is co-chaired by Janice Monger, president & CEO of the Staten
Island Museum, and Valerie Paley, director of the Center for Women’s History
and senior vice president and chief historian at the New-York Historical
Society, to bring together a group of vital New York City cultural
organizations with a shared vision to honor the Women’s Suffrage Centennial.
“We are so proud to bring together
this collective of organizations and colleagues who share the vision that
women’s stories are important and need to be told. All of these activities
represent multi-faceted, nuanced cultural and historical insights into the
early 20th century movement and equality in progress today,” said Janice
Monger, consortium co-chair and Staten Island Museum president & CEO.
“In an effort that was many decades
in the making, a century ago, women came together to fight for and win the
right to vote. While that right was not fully and immediately extended to all
women, their continued collective action galvanized movements to expand and
give substantive meaning to American democracy after the suffrage victory,”
said Valerie Paley, consortium co-chair and senior vice president and chief
historian at the New-York Historical Society, where she directs the Center for
Women’s History. “Through these cultural experiences across New York City, we
hope New Yorkers and visitors alike will be inspired by the women who made
history and the women who are making history now,” she added.
The Women’s Suffrage NYC Centennial
Consortium will continue to grow as new programs and exhibitions are announced
during the year.
Meanwhile,
the National Trust for Historic
Preservation
is compiling a catalog of 1000 sites associated with women of accomplishment and
is more than halfway to the goal of
identifying places Where Women Made History
and is inviting people to submit entries (go to the site to submit a photo and
short description).
“This
year the United States commemorates the 100th anniversary of women gaining the
right to vote, providing an important opportunity to celebrate the place of
women in American history. While history, of course, is complicated, and voting
rights for many women continued to be denied because of discriminatory
practices, we at the National Trust want to tell the full history—to uncover
and uplift women across the centuries whose vision, passion, and determination
have shaped the country we are today. Our goal: discover 1,000 places connected
to women’s history, and elevate their stories for everyone to learn and
celebrate.
“But
to do this, we need your help. What places have you encountered where women
made history? They can be famous or unknown, protected or threatened, existing
or lost. No matter their condition or status, these places matter, and we
encourage you to share them with the world.
“Have
a place you’d like to share? Submit a photo and a short description.”
Visiting the historic landmark house of Alice Austen, an early photographer, on Staten Island, one of the 1000 sites to be listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Where Women Made History” site (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com.
Just
checking the listings in New York State, I see already listed is Grange Hall, Waterloo,
NY, associated with Belva Ann Lockwood; Harriet Tubman House and Gravesite,
Auburn, NY; the former Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, New York City, “Little
Nellie,” Newspaper Editress, Penfield, NY; Alice Austen House, Staten Island;
and Matilda Joslyn Gage Center for Social Justice Dialogue, Fayetteville, NY.
by Karen
Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com
Out of 1200 artifacts, photos, video testimonies, it comes down to one:
a tiny, well-worn leather child’s shoe, the sock still hanging out of it. Was
it taken off in anticipation the child was just going to a shower, or was the
child ferociously pulled out of the shoe and sock?
Shoes take on special significance at the “Auschwitz: Not so long ago.
Not far away.” landmark exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in
downtown Manhattan, which has been extended through August 30, 2020 before
touring to other cities.
As you first walk in, there is a single red shoe in a glass case that perversely sparks an image of the ruby slippers in “Wizard of Oz.” set against a grey-toned wall-mural sized photo of piles of shoes. Further on as you walk through the three-floors of exhibits, there is the pair of hardened leather clog-looking shoes in a case with a prison uniform so rough and raw they would irritate, then infect and swell the feet, a death sentence for the hapless prisoner.
Another display case in the “Selection” section contains shiny leather boots, much like those that the prisoners would see Mengele wearing as they were forced out of the freight cars minutes after being unloaded at Auschwitz, beneath the sign that said. ‘Work Sets You Free.” He was the doctor who selected out twin children for his medical experiments. The rest of the children – 200,000 of them – were immediately sent to the gas chamber along with their mother, aunt, sister, grandmother or friendly stranger who had accompanied them on their journey. The tiny leather shoe with the sock still in it is the only evidence this child existed at all, his life extinguished.
800,000 more Jews were immediately sent to their deaths in the gas
chambers, 2000 at a time, their bodies thrown into crematoria that worked 24/7
to keep up with the factory-scale exterminations, their ashes thrown into a
river.
Out of the 1.1 million “deported” to Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi
killing camps, only 200,000 were “selected” not for immediate death but to
become slave labor in the concentration camp. They too were immediately marched
into showers, their hair shaved, their arms tattooed, their bodies stripped of
any dignity or humanness. Few lived more than a month or two under the
atrocious conditions – dying of starvation, disease, overwork, beatings or
simply shot on the spot. Some became so infirm, they settled into their fate,
and welcomed being carried by stretcher to end their daily terror and pain.
Others, packed six to a wooden plank in the barracks, would wake up to find a
dead person next to them.
“Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away.” offers a different perspective on the Holocaust, a horror on a scale that is incomprehensible, by focusing down to the most personal elements.
This exhibit, which focuses down to one “tiny dot” on a map that was the
largest killing camp in the Nazi’s network – makes it as personal as is
possible. You walk in their shoes. And yet, as well as they show the faces, the
horrors, the personal objects, the testimonials of survivors, the drawings and photos,
an actual freight car and an actual barracks, even so, it is still hard to
comprehend.
Indeed, the incomprehensibility of the horror was key to its success – along
with secrecy and deception. People could not imagine the level of brutality,
cruelty, savageness. So they packed up what they could in suitcases, expecting
they were being resettled to places free of anti-Semitism, where they could
work and live out their lives.
It is also the danger that such dehumanization, genocide, industrial-scale
killing can happen again. Indeed, Auschwitz was not that long ago, nor that far
away.
“Auschwitz” isn’t just a look back with graphic evidence to plant a marker in the history books that others are working so hard to erase . It is a look at now, a look at where the trajectory can lead. That is what is embodied in the phrase. “Never Again.”
I had been steeling myself to visit the Auschwitz exhibit at the Museum
of Jewish Heritage. I recognized that I had an obligation, a responsibility to
be a witness to the extent possible. A NYC-Arts special on PBS helped
enormously because I could visualize, know what to expect and better prepare
for the horror – unlike the millions who were sent to the killing camps. Then
there was that television screening of the story of Irena Sendler, a Warsaw
nurse who smuggled 2,500 children out of the Ghetto to safety – the film so
graphic, her courage and nobility so palpable. Surely I could summon the
courage to face the past. To Remember. Never Forget.
If you thought you knew about the Holocaust and the Nazis’ Final Solution
that exterminated 6 million Jews and too many (40% of adults and 65% of young
people) don’t know anything at all, this rare exhibit, with artifacts gathered
from 20 institutions around the world, focuses just on Auschwitz – from how a
simple Polish village, Oswiecim where half the population was made up of Jewish
families who had lived there for centuries, was turned into the largest of six
killing factories in Poland. Original artifacts – documents, personal items,
posters, photos – show the roots of anti-Semitism and how being Jewish was
converted from a religion to “an inferior race,” a sub-human species, stripped
of legal, political, property and professional rights. That’s the first floor.
You see and hear from survivors how families were stuffed 100, 150 into a
box car (like the one outside the museum), with the ploy of telling them they
were being resettled to a better place free of anti-Semitism, then locked in
with just one pail as a toilet and one pail for water, so crowded, one had to
stand up in order for someone to sit down. And then they arrive on the “ramp”,
where they are “selected,” crossing under a wrought iron sign that said, “Work
Makes You Free.” That’s just the middle of the second floor.
Here you see stacks of suitcases, a pram (a rare artifact) that eerily reminds
you of the display as you enter Ellis Island, the gateway for millions of
immigrants into the United States. But here, it shows how unwitting the victims
were. Because they were only moments away from being sent to their death. And
because access to safe harbors like the United States were shut off to them.
Turn the corner in a room shrouded in darkness and you come upon a white
door of a gas chamber, a metal mesh chimney down which the Zykon B poison was
sent, a gas mask. In another case, one of the innocuous looking showerheads
that survived the fire the Nazis set to destroy evidence of their Final
Solution. Extraordinarily powerful and horrifying drawings by survivor Alfred Kantor depict how women and
children were told to undress and hang up their clothes on a numbered hook so
they would find them again – “Remember your number.” And then they would be
locked into the gas chamber.
They, too, were told they were going to shower to be de-loused. The Nazis
made a show of having them undress in a changing room, have them put their
clothes on numbered hooks so they could find them again. They were shoved 1000
at a time into a shower room, the doors clanked shut, and Zykon B poison pumped
in. It took barely 15 minutes to exterminate them all.
The door would open at the other end and a group of Jewish prisoners, called
Sonderkommandos, would pull the bodies out one by one, drag them to a dumbwaiter
to the crematoria. To keep the secret safe, the Sonderkommandos were kept
isolated from the rest of the camp, living in barracks above the crematoria. A
rabbi among them, a Hungarian, took each child and said Kaddish before placing
the small body in the crematorium.
But one of the Sonderkommandos, working with Polish resistance, smuggled
a camera and film and took photos of bodies being burned in vast fields with
the overflow that couldn’t be handled in the crematoria, working night and day.
There are four of these photos on display.
The Nazis harvested their victims. As the bodies were pulled from the gas
chamber, a Sonderkommando designated “The Dentist” would pull out their gold
teeth. Their clothes and meager belongings had already been plundered and sent
to “Kanada” – vast warehouses named for a country that was considered rich but
out of reach. Between the various business enterprises that the Nazis used
their slave labor and the looting, it is estimated that each prisoner returned
$794 in profit to the SS.
How were the Nazis able to lead 11 million including 6 million Jews to
slaughter like sheep? The secret is how they kept such a massive killing secret,
and who could have imagined such diabolical cruelty, such grotesque brutality,
who could have imagined a Final Solution?
How did they keep such a monstrous secret? How they managed to move
people by the thousands – trapping them into the freight cars when the people
thought they were being resettled to a pleasant village where they would be
allowed to work. They kept it a secret when immediately upon arriving at
Auschwitz, they were separated into two groups. One line was pushed to showers,
told to strip and were turned into slave labor – their hair shaved, arms tattooed,
all their property stripped away along with their identity, their personhood,
stuffed into a prison uniform with an appropriate identifying symbol as to
their status.
You continue on to learn what life was like in Auschwitz for the 200,000
who were not immediately murdered. You listen to harrowing testimonials by survivors,
see part of an actual barracks.
Indeed, Auschwitz
death toll of 1.1 million was the largest
among all the German death camps. But it also had the greatest number of
survivors – some 200,000 people brought to Auschwitz were sent to other camps
before the war ended, and some 7,000 prisoners were liberated at Auschwitz in
January 1945.
You leave this section, which is dark, almost completely black, into a
room called “Persistence and Resistance,” which is off-white, round, with
natural light streaming from a domed ceiling.
Persistence took the form of ways that the prisoners preserved their
humanity.
Resistance took the form of getting the story of what was going on in
Auschwitz out to the world, in the hopes that the Allies would bomb the killing
center or disrupt the deportations, and preserving evidence that would
ultimately hold perpetrators of such colossal evil accountable.
This is the most moving section of all –
when I can finally start breathing again.
The
Auschwitz SS aimed to destroy any possible solidarity between prisoners…‘Resistance’
in Auschwitz therefore consisted of acts in which prisoners, against all odds,
showed solidarity with others. It included heroic actions made with a view to
the larger world outside of the camp, grand gestures of generosity and small
acts of kindness and charity, along with spiritual resistance. And it was
expressed in the determination that-despite the best efforts of the SS – death
in Auschwitz would not remain anonymous, and the victims would not remain
without names.
I learn the amazing story of Witold
Pilecki, a Second Lieutenant in the Polish Army who had himself arrested under
the name Tomasz Serafinski and sent to Auschwitz in 1940 (prisoner no. 4859) in
order to spy for the Polish government.
He
managed to smuggle out messages about life and death in the camp while organizing
fellow prisoners. In April 1943, Pilecki escaped, and returned to Warsaw to
convince the Polish Resistance to attack Auschwitz in a coordinated effort with
prisoners. But the commander who had sent him on his mission had been arrested,
and the new leader judged an attack on the large and well-armed Auschwitz
garrison to be suicidal. They also realized they wouldn’t be able to shelter
the tens of thousands of inmates who might be freed. Pilecki wrote the first
full report on conditions of Auschwitz and the mass murder of Jews in the gas
chambers. The allies received the report but ignored it. Pilecki continued to
fight the Germans, participating in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
Outrageously, in 1947, he was arrested
by the Polish Communist government, tortured, and executed in 1948.
It was so critical to
get information out that several risked their lives to smuggle information out.
I learn the story of The
Auschwitz Protocols: In March 1944, Slovakian Jewish inmates Walter
Rosenberg (aka Rudolf Vrba) and Alfred Wetzler observed the Nazi’s preparations
for the arrival of transports from Hungary. With a lot of planning and luck,
they escaped from Auschwitz on April 7, 1944 and fled to Slovakia in the hopes
of warning the Jews of Hungary.
The testimony of Vrba and Wetzler, along with
information supplied by Czeslaw Mordowicz and Arnost Rosin, who escaped Auschwitz
on May 27, 1944, yielded the first substantial report of the use of Auschwitz
as a death factory. It became known as the “Auschwitz Protocols” and detailed
the continuing massacres in the gas chambers. But the information didn’t reach
the Hungarians in time: beginning in May, over 400,000 Jews were deported and
murdered. A summary of the report arrived in the US in July. That same month,
the Red Army’s liberation of the Majdanek camp led to the publication in the US
of sensational reports written by well-known journalists in America media.
Though it didn’t succeed in its primary objective, the Auschwitz Protocols led
to diplomatic pressure that forced the Hungarian government [the leader now
fearing he would be tried for war crimes] to stop further deportations, saving
the lives of over 150,000 Jews. It also triggered a debate among the Allies:
what parts of Auschwitz could or should be bombed.
On August 20, Allied bombers attacked the IG
Farben factory, but not Auschwitz camps.
“I firmly believed that [the daily killing in
the crematoria] was possible because the victims who came to Auschwitz didn’t
know what was happening there,” Auschwitz survivor Rudolf Vrba wrote in 1985.
“I thought that if this would be made known by any means within Europe, this
might stir up the Resistance outside and bring help directly to Auschwitz. And
thus the escape plans are finally formulated and the escape took place on April
7, 1944.
The Sonderkommandos
organized an ill-fated revolt in October 1944.
Roza Robota recruited women prisoners working in
the munitions factory operating next to the camp to smuggle gunpowder off-site.
Robota passed it to Timofei Borodin, a Russian technician, who carried it to
the Sonderkommandos. Their aim was to destroy the crematoria and spark a
rebellion.
But the uprising went awry. The Sonderkommandos
of Crematorium 5, hearing they were to b e gassed, revolted ahead of schedule.
On October 7, they killed 3 SS, wounded 12 and burned down Crematorium 4. At
the same time, the Sonderkommandos of Crematorium 2 attempted a breakout.
In retaliation the SS killed 451
Sonderkommandos. The camp Gestapo identified Robota and three other Jewish
women – Regina Sapirstein, Ala Gertner and Ester Wajeblum – as plotters. After
weeks of torture they were hanged publicly. As the noose was placed around her
neck, Robota cried out ‘Nekama;’ (Revenge!)
Auschwitz
Sonderkommando Zalman Groiadowski (Sept 6, 1944), leaves a note. “Dear finder,
search everywhere, in every inch of soil. Tons of documents are buried under
it, mine and those of other persons, which will throw light on everything that
was happening here. Great quantities of teeth are also buried here. We, the
Sonderkommando workers, have expressly strewn them all over the terrain so that
the world should find material traces of the millions of murdered people…”
This groundbreaking 18,000-square-foot exhibition takes up three
floors, 20 thematic galleries. Through the artifacts and Holocaust survivor
testimony, it brings you inside and re-creates the experience as best as possible,
raising the alarm how the unimaginable, the inconceivable happened and can
happen again. The commentary notes that one demagogue like Hitler could not
have produced the Holocaust.
“Genocide is a social
act,” the audio guide says toward the end of the exhibit. “It requires a
society who conspires…But the same society can resist.”
But there is one question that is not answered: who, what and how those
who administered torture, who beat and murdered and presided over such intense
suffering. That is a critical question to knowing whether such a thing could
happen again. Just what percentage of a given population are sociopaths?
There are some clues provided in the statements that are presented:
Once Hitler had decided that the “Final Solution”
would be enacted, one important question remained: Who was to be in charge of
the genocide? Heinrich Himmler sought this responsibility as he believed it
would help him consolidate his power.
Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss (1946)
testified, “I visited Treblinka to find out how they carried out their exterminations.
I did not think his methods were very efficient. I used Zykon B, a crystallized
prussic acid dropped into the death chamber from a small opening. It took from
three to 15 minutes to kill the people. Another improvement we made over
Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were
to be exterminated and at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into
thinking that they were to go through a delousing process.”
“The children, they’re not the enemy at the
moment. The enemy is the blood inside them. The enemy is the growing up to be a
Jew that could become dangerous. And because of that the children were included
as well.” (Former Auschwitz SS man Oskar Groning explaining in a 2004 interview
why he condoned killing Jewish children).
The exhibition explores the dual identity of the camp as a
physical location—the largest documented mass murder site in human history—and
as a symbol of the borderless manifestation of hatred and human barbarity.
Consider this: Jews had lived in Germany for 1000 years before the
Holocaust; they had lived in the Polish town of Oswiecim.that the Germans renamed
Auschwitz and repurposed for a killing factory for hundreds of years. It was
only 10 quick years between when Hitler was democratically elected Chancellor
in 1933, to the Final Solution in 1942. By the time Germany surrendered, two
years later, 6 million Jews – two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population – had
been exterminated.
That’s how fast things can descend into unimaginable evil.
Groundbreaking
Exhibition
Produced by the international exhibition firm
Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland, the groundbreaking
exhibition is the largest ever on Auschwitz with more than 700 original
objects and 400 photographs. The New York presentation of the exhibition allows
visitors to experience artifacts from more than 20 international museums and
institutions on view for the first time in North America, including hundreds of
personal items—suitcases, eyeglasses and shoes—that belonged to survivors and
victims of Auschwitz. Other artifacts include: concrete posts that were part of
the fence of the Auschwitz camp; part of an original barrack for prisoners from
the Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp; a desk and other possessions of the first and
the longest-serving Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss; a gas mask used by the
SS; Picasso’s Lithograph of Prisoner; and an original German-made
Model 2 freight train car of the type used for the deportation of Jews to the
ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Poland.
The exhibition also features 10 artifacts on
loan from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which include the spilled, dried
beans Anne wrote about in her diary and that were later discovered lodged
between the cracks of stairs in the home where she hid from the German Nazis.
The beans have never been displayed anywhere before. Most recently, the Museum
announced the exhibition’s incorporation of a shofar (a ram’s horn that is made
into a special wind instrument used during Jewish High Holiday services) that
was hidden and clandestinely blown in the Auschwitz. The shofar was newly added
to the exhibition on the cusp of the High Holy days and temporarily transported
to two New York City synagogues to be blown on Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage has incorporated
into the exhibition nearly 100 rare artifacts from its collection that relay
the experience of survivors and liberators who found refuge in the greater New
York area. Alfred Kantor’s sketchbook and portfolio that contain over 150
original paintings and drawings from Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and
Schwarzheide; the trumpet that musician Louis Bannet (acclaimed as “the Dutch
Louis Armstrong”) credits for saving his life while he was imprisoned in
Auschwitz; visas issued by Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania
often referred to as “Japan’s Oskar Schindler”; prisoner registration forms and
identification cards; personal correspondence; tickets for passage on the St.
Louis; and a rescued Torah scroll from the Bornplatz Synagogue in Hamburg,
postcards sent home in order to deceive family members as to what was really
going on at the camp.
Most profound is a
film that has survived showing a killing field in which the killers are so
casual, even bored by the routine as villagers look on, and the four photos of
Crematorium 5 smuggled out by Alberto
Errera, a Jewish-Greek army officer who joined the resistance during the German
occupation, assuming the name Aleksos (Alex) Michaelides. Captured, Errera was
sent to Auschwitz in April 1944 and selected for the Sonderkommando. On August
9, Errera attempted an escape but was captured, tortured and killed.
Most poignant are the video testimonials of
survivors describing their personal experiences.
Also on display from the Museum of Jewish
Heritage collection is Heinrich Himmler’s SS helmet and his annotated copy of
Hitler’s Mein Kampf, as well as an anti-Jewish proclamation issued
in 1551 by Ferdinand I that was given to Hermann Göring by German security
chief Reinhard Heydrich on the occasion of Göring’s birthday. The proclamation
required Jews to identify themselves with a “yellow ring” on their clothes.
Heydrich noted that, 400 years later, the Nazis were completing Ferdinand’s
work. “These artifacts stand as evidence of a chapter of history that must
never be forgotten.”
The
information is presented as clearly, simply, directly, forth-rightly and in
excruciatingly personal terms, but it is all still so hard to comprehend, to
process, the magnitude, the scale of cruelty.
The artifacts and materials in the exhibition
are on loan from more than 20 institutions and private collections around the
world. In addition to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the Museum of
Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, participating
institutions include Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Anne Frank House in Amsterdam,
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Auschwitz Jewish Center
in Oświęcim, the Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen in Oranienburg, and the
Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide in London.
Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. was conceived of by Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State
Museum and curated by an international panel of experts, including
world-renowned scholars Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, Dr. Michael Berenbaum, and
Paul Salmons, in an unprecedented collaboration with historians and curators at
the Research Center at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, led by Dr. Piotr
Setkiewicz.
“When we, the Musealia curatorial team set out
to design the Auschwitz exhibition, we realized that we faced a difficult
problem. In Auschwitz over a million people, mostly Jews, were murdered shortly
after their arrival or suffered and died in unimaginable circumstances. How
does one create an exhibition about such a dark chapter in human history that,
in our understanding, is not long ago and happened in a place not far away? How
does one make the public, that has so many opportunities to explore a great
city like New York, decide that it would want to see such an exhibition? Our
tools were straightforward: a narrative told through more than 700 original
artifacts, 400 original images, 100 stories, made present by means of filmed
testimonies and quotes – all revealing individual experiences of a history we
must learn from,” said Dr. Robert
Jan van Pelt, Chief Curator.
Following the New York presentation, the
exhibition will tour to other cities around the world.
Visiting
You need 2 ½ to four hours to see just this
exhibit (I was there five hours before I realized it). hours).
Entry is by timed ticket available at
Auschwitz.nyc. Audio guide (available in 8 languages) is included with
admission. Tickets are $25 Flexible Entry (entry any time on a specific day); $16
Adults; $12 Seniors and People with Disabilities; $10 Students and Veterans; $8
Museum Members.
FREE for Holocaust survivors, active members
of the military and first responders, and students and teachers through grade
12 in schools located in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (with valid
school-issued ID).
The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living
Memorial to the Holocaust is
New York’s contribution to the global responsibility to never forget. The third
largest Holocaust museum in the world and the second largest in North America, since
1997, the Museum of Jewish Heritage has welcomed more than 2.5 million
visitors; it maintains a collection of more than 40,000 artifacts, photographs,
documentary films, and survivor testimonies and contains classrooms, a 375-seat
theater (Edmond J. Safra Hall), special exhibition galleries, a resource center
for educators, and a memorial art installation, Garden of Stones,
designed by internationally acclaimed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Set in
the southernmost tip of Manhattan overlooking the New York Harbor, the Museum completes
the cultural and educational triad with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island,
visible from its balcony.
The Museum also partners with Jewish Heritage Travel – offering heritage trips to Germany & France; Poland; The Baltics; Germany; Spain & France; Argentina; and India (jhtravel.org, 845-256-0197).
The Museum is closed on Saturdays, Jewish
holidays, and Thanksgiving.
Museum
of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, 36 Battery Place, New
York City, 646-437-4202, mjhnyc.org.
by Karen
Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com
Always a show of support, solidarity and respect for the Chinese and Asian community in New York City, this year’s Lunar New Year parade in Chinatown in downtown Manhattan, welcoming the Year of the Rat, took on added urgency because of the coronavirus afflicting Wuhan, China, and the recent fire that destroyed a building housing much of the collection of the Museum of Chinese in America.
People
held up signs, “Stay Strong Wuhan,” but even though there have been no
instances of the coronavirus in New York City, visits to Chinatown, normally at
peak during the Lunar New Year celebration, have declined and business has been
affected.
The
parade route went just passed 70 Mulberry Street, where on the night of Thursday,
January 16, a fire destroyed most of the 85,000 items stored there for the
Museum of Chinese in America, housed nearby in a new building on Centre Street
since 2009. The rare and cherished items preserved the rich and challenging
story of the Chinese migration to the United States through such personal
objects as textiles, restaurant menus, handwritten letters, tickets for ship’s
passage, traditional wedding dresses (cheongsam).
The building, a former school that educated generations of
immigrants, is a community center that housed a senior center, the Chen Dance
Center and several community groups, in addition to storing the museum’s artifacts
that were not on display.
Political and parade officials praised the New York Fire
Department, which had a prominent place – bagpipers and all – in the parade.
Meanwhile, fear over the virus has kept people from Chinatown
and Chinese restaurants during what should have been the busiest time of year,
the Lunar New Year celebration.
Elected officials are urging the public to take normal
precautions against illness, but not to let fears concerning coronavirus stop
them from participating in the event. “It’s really important in this
moment where everyone is understandably worried about the coronavirus, we need
to be factual, we need to be scientific, and we need to be calm,” NYC
Council Speaker Corey Johnson said.
The annual event has not only paid tribute to the
contribution the Asian community has made to the city, state and nation, but
immigration as a whole.
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, reading from a
proclamation, said, “As a city built by immigrations, New York is the proud
home to residents who hail from every corner of the map and speak a multitude
of languages. This unparalleled diversity is the source of our singularity and
strength and it is exemplified by our thriving population of Asian Americans
that has made invaluable contributions to the cultural, civic and economic life
of the five boroughs. On the occasion of the 21st Chinatown Lunar
New Year Parade and Festival, hosted by Beter Chinatown U.S.A. I am pleased to
recognize the indelible imprint this vital community has made on our great and
global city.
“New York is fortunate to have an abundance of organizations
devoted to advancing positive change. Established in 2001, Better Chinatown
U.S.A. is guided by its mission to improve quality of life in Manhattan’s
Chinatown and promote it as a destination of choice for our diverse residents
and visitors. Its annual Lunar New Year Parade is a much anticipated event
attracting thousands of spectators from far and wide for a pageant of traditional
lion dances, music ensembles, and dancers in colorful folk costumes, followed
by a party in Sara D. Roosevelt Park featuring Chinese food and cultural performances.”
Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez,
one of the Grand Marshals, spoke of the resilience of the Chinese community,
and how the community “contributes to the fabric of our city, our nation.”
“I’m here to say that Chinatown is open for business and we
are behind you and we will remain strong,” Velazquez said. “Last night, I was
here dining in a restaurant in Chinatown. I welcome everyone to come here and
celebrate the culture and beauty of this community.”
China’s Consul General Huang Ping said “China is doing
everything to confront the coronavirus. We have mobilized forces. We have
strong leadership, resources, are working with the international community. Be
strong China. Be strong Wuhan.”
Lt Governor Kathy Hochul, “We stand together at one family. Stay strong China. Stay strong Wuhan.”
Other dignitaries participating State Senator Brian
Kavanaugh, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Manhattan Borough President
Gale Brewer, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, Assemblyman David Webrin.
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio declared the city
stands in solidarity with China and the Asian community, “no matter what is
thrown at us.” New York has the largest Chinese community outside Asia “and we
are proud of that.” The city made the Lunar New Year a school holiday and
teaches Mandarin as early as pre-K, and is actively promoting participation in
the 2020 Census.
“In China, there
are so many of loved ones, faced with coronavirus and we stand together as
community,” De Blasio said. “We celebrate New Year together – we are united,
and we celebrate this extraordinary Chinese community the largest of any city
outside of Asia.”
He also presented a
Proclamation to parade organizer Steven Ting day for his continued work on the
parade, proclaiming February 9 “Steven Ting Day.”
US Senator Charles Schumer used a bull horn as he marched in
the parade to cheer for immigration. “New Yorkers are proud people, who come
from all over the world. We fight those who oppose us.”
And on that score, the parade was also used to promote the
importance of being counted in the 2020 Census, with one group of even handing out
flyers to recruit census takers ($28/hr, flexible hours).
The Crazy Horse Memorial is sensational, awesome and profound. The
carved portrait in the cliff-side, which I first encounter by surprise as I
bike on the Mickelson Trail between Custer and Hill City is spectacular enough,
but there is so much more to discover. There is also a superb Museum of Native
Americans of North America (it rivals the Smithsonian’s Museum in Washington
DC) where you watch a terrific video that tells the story of the America’s
indigenous people, and can visit the studio/home of the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski.
It is the highlight of our third day of the Wilderness Voyageurs “Badlands and
Mickelson Trail” bike tour of South Dakota.
I rush to join a tour (a
modest extra fee) that brings us right to the base of the sculpture. You look
into this extraordinary, strong face – some quartz on the cheek has a glint
that suggests a tear.
Only then do I realize that,
much to my surprise, seeing the scaffolding and equipment, that 70 years after
sculptor Ziolkowski started carving the monument in 1947, his grandson is
leading a crew to continue carving. Right now it is mainly a bust – albeit the
largest stone carving in the world – but as we see in the museum, the completed
sculpture will show Crazy Horse astride a horse, his arm outstretched toward
the lands that were taken from the Lakota.
At 87 ft 6 inches high, the Crazy Horse Memorial
is the world’s largest mountain carving in progress. They are now working on
the 29-foot high horse’s head, the 263-foot long arm, and 33 ft-high hand, the
guide tells us. The horse’s head will be as tall as 22-story building,
one-third larger than any of the President’s at Mount Rushmore. The next phase of progress on the
Mountain involves carving Crazy Horse’s left
hand, left forearm, right shoulder, hairline, and part of the horse’s mane and
head over 10-15 years. The plan is to carve the back side of the
rock face as well, which would make the Crazy Horse Memorial a three-sided
monument.
When completed, the Crazy
Horse Mountain carving will be the world’s largest sculpture, measuring 563
feet high by 641 feet long, carved in the round. The nine-story high face of
Crazy Horse was completed on June 3, 1998; work began on the 22-story high
horse’s head soon after.
“One if hardest decisions
(after two years of planning) was to start with head, not the horse (in other
words, work way down),” the guide tells us.
In 71 years of construction,
there have been no deaths or life threatening injuries of the workers (though
there was that accident when a guy driving a machine slipped off edge; his father
told him he had to get the machine out himself.)
Four of Korczak and Ruth’s 10 children
and three of his grandchildren still work at the Memorial.
On the bus ride back to the
visitor center, the guide tells us that Zioklowski was a decorated World War II
veteran who was wounded on D-Day, but was so devoted to the Crazy Horse
Memorial, he even planned for his death: there is a tomb in a cave at the base
of the monument..
Back at the visitor
center/museum, the story about the Crazy Horse Memorial is told in an excellent
film:
The overwhelming theme is to
tell the story, to give a positive view of native culture, to show that Native
Americans have their own heroes, and to restore and build a legacy that
survived every attempt to blot it out in a form of genocide.
There were as many as 18 million Indians living in North America when the Europeans arrived
(the current population is 7 million in the US). “These Black Hills are our
Cathedral, our sacred land,” the film says.
Crazy Horse was an Ogala
Lakota, born around 1840 on the edge of Black Hills. He was first called “Curly”
but after proving himself in battle, earned his father’s name, “Crazy Horse” (as
in “His Horse is Crazy”). The chief warned of encroaching “river” of settlers,
leading to 23-years of Indian wars. In 1876 Crazy Horse led the battle against
General Custer, the Battle of Little Big Horn (known as Custer’s Last Stand,
but Indians call it “the Battle of Greasy Grass”). It was a victory for the
Indians, but short-lived. Soon after, the US government rounded up the rebels
and killed Crazy Horse while he was in custody at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. (See www.nps.gov/libi/learn/historyculture/crazy-horse.htm)
Standing Bear was born 1874 near Pierre, South Dakota, and was among the first Indian children sent away to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania where his name was randomly changed to “Henry.” In the school, their Indian identity was forcibly removed – they cut the boys’ hair, they were not allowed to speak their language “to best help them learn the ways of non-native.”
“As a result of attending Carlisle, Standing Bear concluded that in order to best help his people, it would be necessary for him to learn the ways of the non-Native world. Somewhat ironically, Carlisle – an institution that was designed to assimilate Native Americans out of their indigenous ways – became a source of inspiration that Standing Bear would repeatedly draw upon to shape his enlightened understanding of cross-cultural relationships, as well as to find new ways of preserving his people’s culture and history.” He honed leadership skills like public speaking, reasoning, and writing, realizing that because of the changing times, the battle for cultural survival would no longer be waged with weapons, but with words and ideas. “This realization became a driving force behind much of his work during his adult life and led him to become a strong proponent of education,” the background material on the Crazy Horse Memorial website explains (crazyhorsememorial.org).
Standing Bear
attended night school in Chicago while he worked for the Sears Roebuck Company
to pay for his schooling. With feet firmly placed in both worlds, he became
heavily involved in the affairs of his people over the course of his life and
politically astute —working with Senator Francis Case and serving as a member
of the South Dakota Indian Affairs Commission. He led the initiative to honor
President Calvin Coolidge with a traditional name – “Leading Eagle,”
taking the opportunity for advocacy during the naming ceremony to challenge
President Coolidge to take up the leadership role that had been previously
filled by highly-respected leaders such as Sitting Bull and Red Cloud.
In 1933, Standing
Bear learned of a monument to be constructed at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, to
honor his maternal cousin, Crazy Horse, who was killed there in 1877. He wrote
to the organizer that he and fellow Lakota leaders were promoting a carving of
Crazy Horse in the sacred Paha Sapa – Black Hills.
Standing Bear looked for an
artist with the skill to carve the memorial to his people that would show
Indians had heroes too and turned to Korczak Ziolkowski, a self-taught
sculptor who had assisted at Mount Rushmore and had
gained recognition at the 1939 World’s Fair. Standing Bear invited him back to
the Black Hills.
Born in Boston of Polish descent in
1908, Korczak was orphaned when he was one year old. He grew up in a series of
foster homes and is said to have been badly mistreated. He gained skills in heavy construction
helping his foster father.
On his own at 16, Korczak took odd jobs
to put himself through Rindge Technical School in Cambridge, MA, after which he
became an apprentice patternmaker in the shipyards on the rough Boston
waterfront. He experimented with woodworking, making beautiful furniture. At
age 18, he handcrafted a grandfather clock from 55 pieces of Santa Domingo
mahogany. Although he never took a lesson in art or sculpture, he studied the
masters and began creating plaster and clay studies. In 1932, he used a coal
chisel to carve his first portrait, a marble tribute to Judge Frederick
Pickering Cabot, the famous Boston juvenile judge who had befriended and
encouraged the gifted boy and introduced him to the world of fine arts.
Moving to West Hartford, Conn., Korczak
launched a successful studio career doing commissioned sculpture throughout New
England, Boston, and New York.
Ziolkowski wanted to do something
worthwhile with his sculpture, and made the Crazy Horse Memorial his life’s
work.
“Crazy Horse has never been
known to have signed a treaty or touched the pen,” Ziolkowski wrote. “Crazy
Horse, as far as the scale model is concerned, is to be carved not so much as a
lineal likeness, but more as a memorial to the spirit of Crazy Horse – to his
people. With his left hand gesturing forward in response to the derisive
question asked by a white man, ‘Where are your lands now?’ He replied, ‘My lands
are where my dead lie buried’.”
There is no known photo of
Crazy Horse, Ziolkowski created his likeness from oral descriptions.
He built a log studio home
(which we can visit) at a time when there was nothing around – no roads, no
water, no electricity. For the first seven years, he had to haul himself and
his equipment, including a decompressor and 50 pound box of dynamite, up 741
steps.
Living completely isolated
in the wilderness, Korczak and his wife Ruth bought an 1880s one-room school
house, had it moved to this isolated property and hired a teacher for their 10
children.
There is so much to see
here: The Museums of
Crazy Horse Memorial feature exhibits and engaging experiences that let you
discover Native history and contemporary life, the art and science of mountain carving and the lives of the Ziolkowski family.
THE
INDIAN MUSEUM OF NORTH AMERICA® houses an enormous collection of art
and artifacts reflecting the diverse histories and cultures of over 300 Native
Nations. The Museum, designed to complement the story being told in stone
on the Mountain, presents the lives of American Indians and preserves Native
Culture for future generations. The Museum collection started with a single display
donated in 1965 by Charles Eder, Hunkpapa Lakota, from Montana, which remains on display to this day. The
Indian Museum has about the same number of annual visits as the National Museum
of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. Close to
90% of the art and artifacts have been donated by generous individuals,
including many Native Americans.
The gorgeous building housing the Museum
was designed and built by Korczak Ziolkowski and his family in the
harsh winter of 1972-73, when no work was possible on the Mountain.
The Museum incorporated Korczak’s love of wood and natural lighting, being
constructed from ponderosa pine, harvested and milled at Crazy Horse Memorial.
The original wing of the museum was dedicated on May 30, 1973. In the early 1980s,
Korczak planned a new wing of the Museum to accommodate the growing collection
of artifacts. He did not live to see his plans realized, instead his wife Ruth Ziolkowski and 7 of their children
made sure the new wing was built. The structure was built in the winter of
1983-84 and funding came in large part from a $60,000 check left in the Crazy
Horse Memorial contribution box in late August of 1983. The contributor said he
was moved by the purpose of Crazy Horse, Korczak, and his family’s great
progress and by the sculptor’s reliance on free enterprise and refusal to take
federal funds
The Ziolkowski Family Life Collection is shown throughout the complex and demonstrates to people of all ages the timeless values of making a promise and keeping it, setting a goal and never giving up, working hard to overcome adversity, and devoting one’s life to something much larger than oneself. There are portraits of the couple and personal effects that tell their life’s story.
The Mountain Carving Gallery shares the amazing history of carving the Mountain. It features the tools Korczak used in the early years of carving, including a ½ size replica of “the bucket” – a wooden basket used with an aerial cable car run by an antique Chevy engine that allowed the sculptor to haul equipment and tools up the Mountain. Displayed in the Mountain Carving Room are the measuring models used to carve the face of Crazy Horse, plasters of Crazy Horse’s face and the detailed pictorial progression of carving the face. They also detail the next phase in the Memorial’s carving which is focused on Crazy Horse’s left hand and arm, the top of Crazy Horse’s head, his hairline, and the horse’s mane. If you stand in just the right spot, you can line up the model of how the finished work will look against the actual mountain sculpture as it is.
Crazy Horse Memorial is
actually a private, nonprofit (they also have a nonprofit college and medical
training center that educates Indians), and twice turned down federal funding
because “they didn’t believe the government would do it right.” Indeed, Mount
Rushmore (which we see on the last day of our bike tour) was never completed
because the federal government stopped funding the project. The entrance fee
($30 per car, 3 or more people, $24 per car two people, $12 per person, $7 per
bicycle or motorcycle) support the continued carving, the Indian Museum of
North America and the Indian University of North America, which assists qualifying
students get their college degrees.
Once again, I am so grateful
that I am not being pushed along with an artificial time limit by the
Wilderness Voyageurs guides, I wander through the vast complex trying to take
it all in. I am utterly fascinated.
I buy postcards for 25c apiece and stamps, sit with a (free) cup of coffee in the cafe and mail them at their tiny post-office. There is an excellent gift shop.
The Crazy Horse Memorial is
open 365 days of the year, with various seasonal offerings.
I’m the last one to leave
the Crazy Horse Memorial, and note that the bike of our sweeper guide for today John
Buehlhorn,
is still on the rack, but
I figure he will see that I have gone and catch up to me, so I get back on the
Mickelson Trail. He catches me again when I don’t realize to get off the trail
at Hill City, where we are on our own for lunch and exploring the town.
Hill City is really
charming and the home of the South Dakota State Railroad Museum, where you can
take a ride on an old-time steam railroad. The shops are really pleasant.
The Wilderness Voyageurs
van is parked there in case anybody needs anything.
The ride to the Crazy Horse Memorial was uphill on the rail trail for 8 miles but going down hill isn’t a picnic because of the loose gravel – but not difficult and totally enjoyable. We ride through train tunnels and over trestles. It is no wonder that the 109-mile long Mickelson Trail, which is a centerpiece of the Wilderness Voyageurs’ tour, is one of 30 rail-trails to have been named to the Hall of Fame by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. We finish this day’s ride at Mystic at the 74.7-mile marker– we’ll ride the remaining miles on another day. Mystic used to be a significant town when the railroad ran here. Now there are just two buildings and four residents.
I notice the sign tacked up at the
shelter: Be Aware: Mountain Lions spotted on the trail toward Rochford within
the last few days.
We are shuttled back to Custer for our
second night’s stay at the Holiday Inn Express (very comfortable, with pool,
game room, WiFi and breakfast), and treated to a marvelous dinner at one of the
finer dining restaurants, the Sage Creek Grill (611 Mount Rushmore Road,
Custer).
Wilderness
Voyageurs started out as a rafting adventures company 50 years ago, but has
developed into a wide-ranging outdoors company with an extensive catalog of
biking, rafting, fishing and outdoor
adventures throughout the US and even Cuba, many guided and self-guided bike
itineraries built around rail trails like the Eric Canal in New York, Great
Allegheny Passage in Pennsylvania, and Katy Trail in Missouri.
There
are still a few spots left on Wilderness Voyageurs’ Quintessential West Cuba
Bike Tour departing on March 21.
