Survivors and Surviving

This week I have been lucky enough to work one on one with two survivors. One survivor had a granddaughter whose name was Lauren and said until his granddaughter arrived I could fill in. His name was Henry Goldbaum and he was 89 years old. His father died before the war broke out in 1939 and his mother and sisters died upon entering Auschwitz.

The other survivor I was lucky enough to get to know was Jacqueline, when I assisted her facilitation with a group of marines from Quantico. She was born in France and her and her family moved to the unoccupied territory of France once Germany took over. They were saved by the mayor of some small farm town who kept them in hiding and provided them with false identification papers so that they may move freely through the town without question. Jacqueline's brother became depressed starting at a young age. Every member of her nuclear family had survived, but her brother committed suicide when he turned 18. Her happy ending was not as happy as we had expected.

Many of the interns here do not like participating and aiding in the survivor talks because they find it boring; however, I can't understand this. There is no boring story when one listens to a survivor speak, for each talk is one of sorrow, cunningness, miracles, and loss. To say it is boring is taking away the importance of what they have to say. We should all be lucky enough to meet at least one survivor in our lives. They've lived many lives in their lifetime and have many lessons to share, and they are a privilege to know.

As for what I did besides talk with survivors, I learned that I have gotten a handle on my reaction under stress. Today, we had three registered groups of over 80 kids each come in at once all wanting to be the first group inside. Here at the museum, we do fist come first serve with groups. If one group has tickets for 2, another for 2:30 and the 2:30 group gets here first, we would take them before the 2 o’clock group. Chaperones were not happy today and therefore arranging three groups, 2 being dreaded middle schoolers, was no easy feat. I was calm, cool and collected through it and received praise and appreciation from many of the unaggressive chaperones.

Right after handling the groups, I was directed over to 14th street where 2 lines- just as long as the group line- were forming. Everything was running smoothly until one security scanner decided to break down. We now had to figure out how to get the visitors from that broken down line over to the working line without cutting in front of anyone and keeping new visitors from entering. Between me and my boss, we got everyone inside in a timely organized manner by blocking off the working line. Once that line was through, we brought in the people from the broken line, and when they were through we opened the line back up. It was fast, efficient and I felt no stress or panic. My tolerance towards high-stress situations has improved tremendously and I didn't realize it until today.

Because it was truly terribly busy today.