Since 1923 • For a greater Loyola

The Maroon

Since 1923 • For a greater Loyola

The Maroon

Since 1923 • For a greater Loyola

The Maroon

Museums are a way to visit the past

Katie+Atkins%2C+history+senior
Katie Atkins, history senior

Katie Atkins

History senior

[email protected]

The summer before my senior year of high school, I took a trip to England with my dad. We spent a day at the Imperial War Museum in London, a gorgeous museum housed inside the imposing rotunda of a defunct insane asylum, with two massive naval cannons mounted in the front garden. The collection kept there is extensive and unique, with exhibits from all across Europe dating as far back as the First World War up until the present day. Towards the end of our visit, as I stood in front of one of many glass cases sprawled out on the upper floors, my eyes rather aimlessly wandering over the exhibits; I got the unmistakable feeling of being watched. I glanced downward and realized that there was a face behind the glass – a ghostly white, grimacing visage made of plaster. I peered at the grotesque form a moment. It was a death mask. But whose was it?

I looked over to the label next to the mask. That’s when I instantly felt my stomach drop to the floor, and I’m certain I went a little pale.

It was Heinrich Himmler.

Heinrich Himmler, as you may or may not know, was the architect of the Holocaust. He headed the Schutzstaffel in Nazi Germany, meticulously planning and carrying out the “Final Solution” with terrifying efficiency. It is not uncommon to find historians who consider him to be more diabolical and bloodthirsty than Hitler himself. After the war, he managed to evade capture under an alias for several weeks before his identity was discovered. He bit into a cyanide capsule before the Nuremberg Trials, choosing death over the judgment of the world. Two plaster molds were made of his face shortly after he died.

And one of them was before me.

I could not believe that only a thin pane of glass separated me from such a personal object belonging to one of the most evil men to walk the planet. It felt almost as though I were looking at the man himself, face to face. It was positively chilling. I almost felt like looking at the mask with my own eyes gave me some connection to the atrocities that this villain had committed. The image of who I had seen haunted me for quite a while after leaving the museum.

Museums are just about the closest thing we have to experiencing the past for ourselves.

In New Orleans we can experience the past in many different ways. We are lucky to live in a city with numerous museums: the National World World II Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, the New Orleans African American Museum and many more. As students, we should take the opportunity in this city to experience the past for ourselves.

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