1/16/15
Miami Beach FL
Posted by Bill

I’ve been wanting to check out the Holocaust Monument here in Miami Beach since we got here, and today we finally made it. It was a short walk from where we land our dinghy and I have read that it is really well done. Let me tell you…it is very well done. I’ll attempt to give you the low down through the pics that Tricia took:

This is one of the first views you get as you come up to the monument. The sculptures are fantastic and really depict the emotion:

It starts with a historical synopsis of the period between 1939 and 1945 when the Nazi regime plotted to eradicate the Jews from Europe and eventually the world. The history is etched into marble walls. This is followed by pictures that support the synopsis and tell more detailed stories, also etched into the walls like this one:

Then you walk into an area with the names of people and families that were murdered during the Holocaust period, which were submitted by their families. It represents a fraction of the 3 million plus Jews that were murdered at the hands of the Nazis. You can see the walls on the right in this picture. There are 57 sections with names here:

Then you walk through this corridor that has the names of the death camps engraved on both sides, that leads to an area that has sculptures and more sections of names of victims.






It really made you think hard about what happened to those people back then, and it is really kind of unbelievable that anyone treated people this way! It was horrible, and even more horrible that no one on earth did anything about it for years. In spite of it all, you are left with these words by Anne Frank:

It was very emotional and very well done. My heart goes out to the people that suffered during this time period and to their families.

Right next door is the Botanical Gardens, so we checked that out too. Tricia caught some great pics here too:





Look…bananas!

And then this chameleon. They are everywhere down here. We thought the grandkids would like this:

Then we walked to the beach. We took the good camera today so we could capture what we have been experiencing better than the cell phone cameras:

Then we walked up Lincoln Road (that we have talked about in previous posts) to try and capture what it was like and catch some of the interesting people we have been seeing.

Your sister wears combat boots…

I am always interested in the shoes people wear:

Especially black socks and sandals…

Great see-through commando look:

Finally back to where we have been tying up the dinghy:

Then it was back to the boat for sundowners and a great sunset:

Tricia cooked another gourmet meal and we drank to a good day!