Somehow in the last fifteen years several sights have arrived in Saint Louis, and I have missed them. CityGarden, for example, and the Modern Art museum, and a new and improved Transport museum, and the one I visited this past weekend, the Kemp Auto Museum. It’s on the flood plain in Chesterfield Valley that was underwater in ’93. Of course, the new levee is sturdy and will not burst. If it does, there will be a helicopter shot of antique cars gently floating out of a warehouse.
First off, we got a discount because a fair number of the cars were in storage to make room for a reception. I’d like to imagine these were spectacular cars, unusual cars, cars with rumble seats and such. Because frankly, though the sign outside did indicate this was a shrine to the Mercedes Benz, I was not prepared for the subliminal tweaking the Benz does to my subconscious.
Don’t know what an antique Mercedes Benz looks like? Guess who’s riding in this one!
Friend #4 later reported her husband said it best: he thought any minute he’d see someone give a Heil Hitler.
I didn’t quite know why I felt uncomfortable, until I was admiring a car and Gary said brightly, “Yes, the Jewish slave labor did an excellent job on that car!”
It really beings to bring you down. Hitler car, Hitler car, vintage Volkswagen, Hitler car. It wasn’t all Hitler all the time, for example, I can’t see Hitler getting in to this …
… but there were more than enough Hitlermobiles to make you feel a little threatened.
I think I could have put it out of my mind if any of the museum placards had dealt with the war connection, but they didn’t seem to. At least not the ones I read – I stopped reading closely after one car was described as being in “dyer” need of repair.
So,”Nein!” on the Kemp Auto Museum.
3 responses to “Don’t Mention the War!”
I was in Berlin this morning photographing a statue of children being transported out of Getmany in 1938 when a German lady drew me over to the story boards explaining the whole sorry business. And tomorrow I visit the site here in Poland where my father spent 4 years of his life in the Great Escape Luftwaffe camp. Not much chance of not mentioning the war for me.
On quite another level of outrage altogether, how does Autocorrect let through ‘Getmany’ without comment? Some kind of political agenda there?
Big Dot – I liked your blog post- So odd to think Jewish children were coming in to the UK and then UK children were sent off to France. One would think we should be sheltering all the Afghani children that have been threatened by the Taliban.