The Seal Bark

Day 4

We started the day off a little late and skipped breakfast. We went to the Old Post Office for some lunch and a view from the tower. It was so HOT inside the post office and on the elevator ride up to the bell tower.

We had time after lunch for something quick before our tour started at the Holocaust Memorial Museum so we ran (okay, slowly walked in the heat) over to the Natural History Museum and watched a 3-D Imax movie, "Dinosaurs". The highlight of the day for my boys.

Then we spent a few hours in the Holocaust Memorial Museum. This was a very emotional and heavy thing for all of us. I don't think my kids really grasped what they were seeing and reading about, which is probably best. I thought it was a good thing for them to go to though. I was only 9 years old when I went to a concentration camp in Austria with my family. I still remember the camp and all the stories I learned from that visit even though I don't remember anything else from that trip. I feel like that experience gave me a greater understanding of the Holocaust and wanted my kids to have that knowledge and understanding, too. It is such a difficult and impossible thing to comprehend. One of the exhibits stated that the genocide first started with children with handicaps and mental retardation. The institutions and doctors were all for the euthanization of these children stating it would be painless, they did not have quality of life, and the funds would be better spent on education. And of course then there were pictures of the darling children moments before they were euthanized. It is so insane to think about all the corruption and horrific things that occurred at that time and how many people were willing to go along with it.

We ended the day with an Allstate dinner party on the roof of the hotel and then some swimming.