On Saturday morning (yesterday), outside my windows confirmed that it continued to be cold, gray, and wet (off and on). But each day when I get bundled up and outside mixed up with all the others, it doesn’t seem so bad and I smile. I’m in Paris.I headed for one of the more thought-provoking sights in the city—one well hidden unless you know where or want to find it. It’s the Deportation Memorial and is located on the eastern tip of the Ile de la Cite across a small street behind Notre-Dame beneath a quiet non-descriptive park overlooking the Seine. The city's morgue once stood here so apparently it is a cursed site and appropriate for this monument. The Memorial is dedicated to the French victims of the Nazi concentration camps (1940-1945); and I have visited it several times before because I should. Today I was all alone except for the guard at the top of the stairs who checked my sac.
As you walk down the steps, the feeling is of entering your own prison—walls surround you, the city is no more, and your only view is of a piece of sky and a few ripples on the Seine behind the bars…nothing else. Inside the hexagonal-shaped chamber (like the Star of David) is a hallway lined with 200,000 lighted crystals signifying the French who died; an eternal flame of hope at the far end of the hallway; and the tomb of the unknown deportee at your feet. Above the door: “Dedicated to the living memory of the 200,000 French deportees sleeping in the night and the fog, exterminated in the Nazi concentration camps.” Tiny side rooms are filled with triangles, which are reminiscent of the ID patches that prisoners were forced to wear—one for Jews, one for professional criminals, one for homosexuals, etc. Chiseled in the stone walls are the names of all the Nazi camps and of course the message, “Forgive, but not forget.”
Today was sunny but colder. Additionally, since it is the first Sunday of the month, many museums offer free admission. Everyone, of course, heads to the Louvre, the d’Orsay, the Rodin—I headed for the Cluny, which is the national museum of the Middle Ages located on the Left Bank not far from the Sorbonne (university area). Frankly, I didn’t expect to like it—thought it would be dark and boring. But I was wrong and I found it very interesting—the flow of the rooms leaves something to be desired but each room is elegantly displayed. 
The outer walls of this mansion, originally a hotel providing accommodations for prelates from the abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, protect the remains of Gallo-Roman baths; and in fact, one huge room is the largest Roman vault in France with a 40-foot-high ceiling. One small room displays stained glass panes so close you can nearly leave your nose print. Another has all 21 original stone heads of the Biblical kings of Judah that once decorated the front of Notre-Dame (the current ones are reconstructions). In 1793, a mob of Revolutionaries mistook them for the kings of France and lopped off their heads. But someone quietly buried them in his backyard from where they were subsequently dug up in 1977 by construction workers. The other works of art for which this museum is famous—The Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries. The designer of these six tapestries is unknown (probably French, they say…or hope); they were woven in Belgium out of wool and silk before 1500 AD. Each one of the five deals with each of the five senses (taste, hearing, sight, smell, and touch); the sixth one hints at human sensuality and the awakening of the Renaissance from the dark ages. Not one to even glance at tapestries, I found these to be light, bright, close enough to study, and very, very detailed. 
The only problem with today…. I lost the memory card out of my camera. At some point, I was trying to get my camera out of my purse and it stuck. I pulled and the battery door came open. I noticed the battery in there and was more worried about the door being damaged. I proceeded to take some pictures until the camera told me that my internal memory was full. Huh? That’s when I started searching—but to no avail. It obviously flew out when I tugged on the camera. Fortunately, I have another memory card; I upload my pictures every night; it wasn’t my passport, my credit card, or my cash. It was a lesson to pay attention and also not to obsess, as I tend to do. Let’s hope this is my last “lesson” for the trip.
