Life on the Vine

Last night before heading to bed I did a quick search to scan through the day's news headlines and a Los Angeles Times article caught my eye.  Here is a link to the story: On anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation, world remembers Holocaust amid signs of rising hate . Yesterday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the 73rd anniversary of the Soviet army liberating the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps in occupied Poland.  I wanted to mark and remember that day by spending some time today sharing photos from our visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau two weekends ago. I think, like most American students, my first exposure and introduction to the Holocaust came through reading Night by Elie Wiesel.  In the book, Wiesel shares his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald during 1944-1945.  Wiesel and his family were among an estimated 430,000 Hungarian Jews deported to the death camp.   His father died just three months before liberation and his mother and l...

When Tom and I went to Tuscany in October, we flew in and out of Florence. On our last day, en route to the airport, I wanted to stop and visit the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial.  I've mentioned it before on this blog that my maternal grandfather served in Italy during World War II and my paternal grandfather was in the Pacific. Both of them survived the war but so many others did not. Visiting the cemetery, for me, was a way of honoring both of my grandfathers' service and the service and sacrifice of so many who did not come home. Delmar Marks, United States Army Unit patches of the Northern Italian Campaign In front of the memorial is a pylon with a sculpture on the top. It's called the Spirit of Peace. Spirit of Peace Inscription at the base of the pylon. The figure hovers over the fallen, bearing olive branches. Tablets of the Missing - 1,409 names are inscribed here Inside the memorial is a chapel  Markers throughout the ...

This is probably a blog I should do in two posts but I'm going to try and do it in one.  I'll try to minimize my words and let the photos tell the story. Over World War II's D-Day anniversary, Tom and I traveled to Normandy on a 3-day USO tour.  It was a whirlwind, jam-packed trip that maximized every moment of what were 13 to 14 hour-long days.  I had been looking forward to the trip for months and believe that visiting that historic site during the anniversary is a trip of a lifetime.   In two-and-a-half days we visited three of the D-Day invasion beaches (Gold, Omaha and Utah); visited the American and the German cemeteries; visited Point du Hoc and Saint-Mere-Eglise; went to the Airborne Museum (although we didn't stay long because of the crowds) and the Museum of the Battle of Normandy (which is a VERY good museum); we saw the Longues-sur-Mer Gun Battery and concluded the visit at Pegasus Bridge.  If you've ever seen the movie "The Longest Day" it...