Today, as I'm crossing the street from the Metro station, a tall, heavy-set black man approaches me, refusing to drop his gaze from my eyes. Oh great, I think, he wants me to buy something.
"Did it hurt?" he asked.
Good Lord, is he serious? "What?!" I reply.
"Did it hurt?" the corners of his lips turn up.
"Did what hurt?" I ask, rolling my eyes as I anticipate his next words.
"When you fell from heaven?" By now I'm stopped in the middle of a quiet street, my five Nigerian women catching up to me and pausing with curious expressions.
"Does that line actually work for you?" I ask, unfortunately with no control and I start to smile.
He smiles back and shakes his head. "No, but I don't care!"
I laugh. "I'm married!" I pull off my mitten and show him my ring.
"I don't care!" he exclaims loudly.
I laugh again. "Well I do! I love my husband!"
"I don't care!" he shouts to the sky. "I love you husband too! Because he loves you!"
I laugh as I walk away. The slower of my ladies are just catching up to us, and they trot the rest of the way across the street with me, asking what the man had wanted.
How flattering. A couple of blocks later, I pull open a heavy door to the Chinese restuarant we are to eat at. As I hold my place as a human door stopper, I look up and across the street to the Seven-11. Two guys are standing, holding the door open there, and staring at me. When they see me see them, they both animatedly start waving and blowing kisses. I blush, and Elizabeth, one of my beautiful Nigerians, stops and looks. The men get extra excited and wave ferociously. She waves back and laughs. "Thank you!" I call across the way, and as we enter the restaurant I tell Elizabeth they were blowing her kisses.
"Oh ho ho!" she laughs embarassed.
Earlier today, we rode an elevator to the top of the Washington monument. I could see everything from up there, but I couldn't see Iowa. The scenery was gorgeous, and I got a glimpse (finally!) of the Vietnam War Memorial, which I really want to visit but probably won't get a chance to on this trip (guess I'll have to wait until the next time IRIS sends me here - either this summer or a week next fall!). Then Del comes up behind me as I am facing south and points to a building. "The Holocaust Memorial Museum." He says. He got us tickets. I get really excited.
Inside the museum is intense. I can't describe it, the atrocities that I knew already but had never had so neatly and disgustingly presented. There were videos that were hidden behind tall walls (so only adults could see them) of disgusting footage I've never seen. Actual footage of people being shot, hacked with knives, women being paraded about naked; rooms full of hacked off legs, a man being tortured in an air-pressure chamber, children being mutilated. I walked through a train car that had carried hundreds, if not thousands of Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's witnesses, Romas (gypsies), and political prisoners to their deaths. I saw the powerful intensity of a man who had authoritarian control over a country, someone who had covered every base in luring people into a sense of false security over and over again before pulling the trap door. Sick and twistted cruelty, and a world unprepared or uninterested in fighting him. There were hundreds of pictures of men and women running, naked, starving, or just laying there, helplessly looking up at a camera lense. As I walked along a model of how the gas chambers worked, I thought, I need my husband. I need him with me here, now. I miss him and I hope that we never have to face this tragedy. More later.
Tomorrow, VOA tour and State Department visit. Pray for my sanity - I've never encountered a whinier bunch of women who are being given a free trip to Washington D.C. Breathe in, breathe out.
3 years ago
4 comments:
my favorite line: Earlier today, we rode an elevator to the top of the Washington monument. I could see everything from up there, but I couldn't see Iowa.
you are so cute and hot! i love that you got a lame come on line. even i didn't do that! ( i think) i love you, i wish i could be there!
kim, you're amazing. i've been to the holocaust museum too...way intense, but a good experience nonetheless.
and i agree: you're hot. i'd hit on you.
For your consideration-------
Could someone please explain me why there has not been a "Holocaust" newspaper article published anywhere in the United States in the past 20 years which does not mention that "Jehovah's Witnesses" were also persecuted by the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s?
The Nazis persecuted "anyone" and "everyone" who did not believe and practice as they did, so the list of Nazi opposers could potentially be endless. Thus, my question again.
Could someone please tell me why there has not been a "Holocaust" newspaper article published anywhere in the United States in the past 20 years which does not mention that Jehovah's Witnesses were also persecuted by the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s?
Does the WatchTower Society financially support the various Holocaust museums and groups in the United States and Europe in order to assure that this religious CULT is able to extract some sort of positive "PR" out of this historical tragedy?
Everyone knows that approximately 6,000,000 Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis, and even many more millions of Jews suffered from lesser "persecution". Approximately 100,000 homosexuals were "persecuted", and the number slaughtered may have been as many as 15,000. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of other persons also were slaughtered by the Nazis
Compare those statistics with the Jehovah's Witness. There were only 6000 JWs in Germany during that time period, and while many of those 6000 German JWs were arrested, only 2-300 lost their lives, and the majority of those 2-300 died from any number of causes other than having been executed. Those deaths, few though they may be when compared with the groups who lost thousands to execution, are tragic. But, that is not the point. The point is why does every single Holocaust article lump the JWs into the mix as if they were a significant part of the Holocaust story?
In fact, during that time period, there were more Jehovah's Witnesses arrested and jailed in the United States than in Germany. In fact, from 1941 until 1945, approximately 4500 American Jehovah's Witnesses "elected" to go to prison rather than serve in the Military and go fight against those same Nazis who were committing those atrocities. Roughly two-thirds of those 4500 American JWs were even offered "conscientious objector" status, in which they were offered "non-combatant" work as a substitute, but 99% of those JWs even refused to help out that much.
In fact, Jehovah's Witness played an even less significant role in the Holocaust tragedy than the role that JWs play in any part of societal goings-on today. But-for being the butt of a few comedians' jokes here and there, the JWs would receive virtually no mention outside articles about the Holocaust.
In fact, it is almost an insult to mention Jehovah's Witnesses alongside Holocaust victims such as the Jews and homosexuals, given that Jehovah's Witnesses view both groups much as did the Nazis.
Practicing homosexuals are instantly excommunicated and shunned by the JWs, which means that JW family members are forbidden to associate with them, and must cut them out of their lives. Excommunication is the Old Testament equivalent to "death by stoning", and Shunning is treating an excommunicated person as if they had been executed.
As for Jews, the WatchTower Society teaches its own version of "replacement theology", which says that GOD rejected the Jews as His "chosen people", and replaced them with today's "Jehovah's Witnesses". In fact, the title "Jehovah's Witnesses" was originally applied to the Jews by the Prophet Isaiah, and is even quoted on the wall at the entrance to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.
The WatchTower Society, in calling its own members "Jehovah's Witnesses" is attempting to steal that designation away from the Jews. The WatchTower Society even teaches that all of the Bible's promises of restoration for the Jewish people now belongs to the followers of the WatchTower Society.
I'm confused about how this comment appeared here, but it is interesting. Unfortunately, a death is a death, and I never much considered who else died in the Holocaust. I'm not endorsing JWs any more than I'm endorsing homosexuality or Romas... so I don't quite understand the point of adding such a drawn out comment to my blog. However, it wasn't argumentative or angry or rude, so I think I'll leave it up. It's almost a valid point, but like I said: a death is a death.
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