By Rebekah Abel, Janet Agyeman, David Higuera

While in Montreal, we tried to take advantage of the museum passes and transportation passes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  We planned the museums that we wanted to see each day, but towards the end of the week we decided to make a more rigorous schedule so we could go to as many museums as possible.  On Tuesday, we started off by going to the “Space for Life Tour”, which included the Planetarium, Biodome, Botanical Garden and Insectarium.  At the Planetarium we were able to watch both of the planetarium shows; the Chaos Show which was more of an artistic engaging experience, and the From Earth to the Milky Way Show, which was a traditional planetarium lecture, and was not as entertaining.  Next we visited the Biodome, which was a very cool experience.  It was a representation of the various ecosystems of Canada, and included both plants and animals from those ecosystems.  The cutest animals in the Biodome were the puffins.  Afterwards, we visited the Botanical Gardens and Insectarium.  Many of the flowers were not yet in bloom, so we just enjoyed the wonderful weather.  We also saw the exhibits at the Insectarium.  We visited the Olympic Stadium, but were not able to see the Observatory because it was too expensive for our budgets.  Afterwards we walked to Rue Prince Arthur, which was the Montreal equivalent of Haight-Ashbury, but is now basically just student housing for the University.

On Wednesday, we had several difficulties with our museum passes.  We were not able to enter the McCord Museum, due to our passes not being activated.  After being denied entry, we decided to come back in the late afternoon, when it was free.  We then visited the Redpath Museum, which was part of McGill University.  The museum was reminiscent of a Victorian Era museum, with taxidermy animals, and artifacts that were not behind glass, which made the experience more worthwhile.  Next we visited the Museum of Fine Arts, which was a fabulous art museum.  Unexpectedly, the museum included several buildings, so we were not able to see all of the exhibits.  We did, however, see exhibits about Napoleon, Renaissance art, Victorian art, and Modern art.  Our favorite was a statue entitled “Old Enemy, New Victim”, in the modern art exhibit.  The statue was extremely strange, which is why we found it so interesting.  Next we went to the Musee des Hospitallaires, which was a museum focused on the oldest hospital in Montreal.  The hospital is still in use, and was located right next to the museum.  It included many historic artifacts related to the hospital and medical field.  One artifact was a historic staircase built in the 17th Century.  On our way to the next museum, we encountered a public art project called “21 Swings”, which included several swing-sets that played music, as part of a collective musical production.  The public was welcome to use the swings through June 1st, which actually ended up being fun and entertaining to experience.  The last museum we visited on Wednesday, was the McCord Museum, which was free after 5:00pm on Wednesdays.  It included artifacts from the ’67 Worlds Fair, and some art from a local artist.  Overall, this museum was disappointing compared to our expectations.  We finished off the day by visiting several historic churches in the area, including St. Patrick’s Basilica.  We attempted to visit the so-called ‘Underground City’, which ended up just being a shopping mall that was closed very early.

Thursday, we started off the day very early, so we could visit as many places as possible.  First, we went to the St. Joseph Oratory, which included a very cool exhibit of international nativity scenes.  We also stayed for the morning mass.  Surprisingly, the mass was in French, when it is typically in traditional Latin.  Next we went to the Montreal Holocaust Museum, which was a very small museum.  It was not a very hands-on museum, and the museum was very crowded while we were there.  However, we did receive the unique experience of meeting an actual Holocaust survivor, Joe Fellner, from whom we heard several stories about his experience during the Holocaust.  This was a very emotional experience, of which we won’t soon forget.  Afterwards, we headed over to Chateau Ramzey, in Old Montreal.  The museum was pretty small, but interesting.  It had costumed interpreters, historic exhibits, and an exhibit about historic punishments.  Next we visited Point-a-Calliere, which was an archeology museum.  It had underground crypts where visitors could view the foundations and sewer of a historic building.  It also included a special exhibit about the journey of Marco Polo, and included many historic artifacts from the 15th and 16th Centuries.  One of our favorite exhibits was “Scandal! Vice, Crime, and Morality in Montreal 1940-1960”, at the Montreal History Museum.  It included many of the crimes and moral issues that were in Montreal in the mid 1900s.  The exhibit was very engaging, and interesting.  The exhibit told a story as visitors walked through the exhibit.  One surprising fact was that Montreal had a red light district.  Afterwards, we attempted to visit Pied-du-Courant Prison Museum but it had already closed by the time we got there.  On the way there, we acquainted ourselves with two girls from France, who accompanied us to the Margaret Bourgeoys Museum, which included going up to the top of the church steeple.  While the French girls were with us, we asked them about the comparison of Montreal to France, and the Quebec-Quois language to French spoken in France.  The last place we visited was the Cinematique Quebecoise, which was a museum focusing on the film industry in Canada.  It included historic televisions, movie cameras, and a special exhibit about special effects.  The special effects exhibit was cool, and showed how special effects are incorporated into films.

Overall, all three of us had a fantastic time in Montreal.  We really felt enlightened by the language, art, and culture of the city, and enjoyed talking to new people, seeing historic buildings, and experiencing a new city.  We are all three very glad we were able to have this experience, and are looking forward to studying abroad again in the future!

  On Thursday, May 22nd, I went to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Montreal. About halfway through the exhibits, I met the man in the center of this photograph. His name is Joe Fellner, and he was a Hungarian-born Jew who survived the Holocaust. Joe is the youngest of his twelve siblings, and his father owned a slaughterhouse in Hungary. Helping out with his father’s work made him bigger and stronger than most boys his age. When Joe was thirteen, he was taken to his first concentration camp, Auschwitz. Upon arrival another prisoner asked Joe how old he was. When Joe said he was thirteen, the prisoner replied, “No. You’re eighteen. When they ask, you’re eighteen.” So when the officers came around asking age, Joe said he was eighteen, and was put to work with one of his brothers and his cousin. Even though they begged, pleaded and cried, afraid that they would be killed because of Joe’s lie, he refused to go back and correct his age (later, Joe told me he found out that anyone under the age of eighteen was immediately sent to the gas chambers).

Joe was in Auschwitz for two months, and then he, his brother and his cousin were sent in a group of 700 to start a new camp near Berlin. By the time the camp was shut down, it had grown to more than 1,300 people. 90 of those 1,300 walked out alive. Joe was the only one of the original 700.

Joe went to three more concentration camps, visiting a total of 5 during the Holocaust. He survived by eating anything he could find, including worms, rotten scraps, partially-eaten food from officers running the camp, and even one time oats from horse poop. He watched prisoners brutally tortured before being killed; he saw two Russian prisoners of war dragged around by their tongues until they died. He was forced to dig mass graves for American soldiers, and again for Canadian soldiers. By the time he turned fourteen, he had lived in five concentration camps and had gone from 176lbs. to 58lbs. He was little more than a skeleton, and even when he did find people from his old home, they thought him dead, and placed him with the other bodies, saying the Kaddish (Jewish prayer for the dead) and leaving him to die. It was now June 4, 1945.

On June 4th, 1945, Joe felt someone measuring his pulse. He lifted Joe from the dead bodies, and began trying to get Joe to wake up. He gave him two booster shots and slapped his face repeatedly, saying in German “We are the Americans. You are free.” He finally managed to bring Joe around, and Joe could see light on either side of him, but he couldn’t see the man’s face. All he could see was black. When he told the man this, the man said, “You’re supposed to see that; I’m a black man.” He stayed with Joe for an hour, and then left to find help. Joe never saw the man again.

In 1948, after traveling back to Hungary and finding out that of all of his family, only he, two brothers, and three of his sisters survived, Joe decided to leave Hungary, which was becoming more and more of a Communist country that Joe wanted no part of. He chose to go to Canada, where he would not have to join the armed forces, and has lived there ever since. He has been married to his wife for the last 58 years, and has two sons, two daughters-in-law, five grandchildren, one great-grandchild and another on the way.

Meeting Joe that day completely blew my mind. Joe described horrors to me that I had never imagined happened before, and he not only survived this terrible ordeal, but has thrived since. He goes to schools all the time to talk to students about his experience, to make sure they are informed so that he can help ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. He made it through everything without losing his faith in God, and without doubting that he would make it out alive. I am truly proud to know him, and have never met a stronger man in my life.

When President Barack Obama was first elected as president, one of the first countries he visited as president was Canada. This really excited the Canadians, who didn’t even get a thank you visit after 9/11 from the previous president even though he had done that in many other countries. When he came to Canada’s capital, Ottawa, he went to the Byward Market and bought cookies for his daughter on February 19, 2009.

This moment has become really famous in this area and they renamed the simple cookie– which is shaped like a maple leaf, is red, and says “Canada,” the Obama Cookie. I had the pleasure of purchasing an Obama cookie yesterday from Byward Market.

One of my favorite things about Montreal is the city’s emphasize on health. They take a practical approach to solving some of the world’s biggest problems and implement them into the daily lives of the citizens. To solve the burning issues on global warming, the city adopted the Bixi-bike (a taxis/bike hybrid) to reduce CO₂ emissions and promote exercise.              

As you walk throughout the streets of Montreal, you will notice that for every trashcan there is a recycling bin counterpart. The idea seems simple, but surprisingly it is something the States have yet to adopt. Sure, the U.S does recycle, but we don’t go the extra mile to raise awareness to our people.

The province of Quebec has also made efforts to improve the health of its citizens. Buying a pack of cigarettes in Montreal will run you about $10.00 and you will also have to get past the disturbing image located on the front of all cigarette cartons.

These are just some examples of the actions Quebec has taken to promote the health of the environment and its people. There is a lot we can learn from the people of the Great White North and the U.S would benefit from following their lead.