A Scary Account of Working at the Holocaust Museum: From My DaughterBy Greg Mitchell - June 11, 2009, 2:52PM
Yesterday, as the fatal shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. unfolded, I couldn't help recalling that my daughter, Jeni Mitchell, just out of college, worked at the museum during its start-up, in 1992, through its 1993 opening, and two years after that. I also remembered that she had told me, long ago, about some of the scary threats she and others received just for working there, and the extraordinary security measures (little publicized) that they had to take. Of course, I forgot most of the details.
Fortunately, moved and "upset" by the tragic attack by a racist, anti-Semite, she wrote me from London -- where she's getting her Ph.D. -- last night, reflecting on her experience at the museum back in the 1990s. Here's some of what she sent along:
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"The entire time I worked there, we always expected something terrible to happen. I was very lucky it didn't while I was there -- but it wasn't for lack of trying. Our head of security was a former FBI guy and he said we would not believe the volume of threats.
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"A couple months ago, when there was that big controversy over the Department of Homeland Security report on potential right-wing terrorism, I could NOT believe that it had to be recalled, that it was somehow controversial. Working at the Holocaust Museum in the first years of the Clinton administration was like having a front-row seat to right-wing hate groups. They are a peculiar American pathology, and they are not going anywhere.
"I am really just heartbroken that after all these years, such terrible violence happened at a place dedicated to peaceful coexistence, nonviolence, mutual understanding, etc. And I am furious that an octogenarian nutcase can kill an innocent person.
"Anyway, sorry to ramble, I'm just pretty upset about this, and feeling mournful that the price to be paid for an Obama presidency seems to be an epidemic of well-armed lunatics."
more:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/11/a_scary_account_of_working_at_the_holocaust_museum/#more
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