Erin Blankenship. I got an email from her aid on Thursday or Friday That just told us like the status, which was, it's kind of iffy, so I wrote back some questions. I'll find out more, but as of right now, I'm not sure. But I went to Tallahassee and I met with some folks, but it is what it is.
(Mumbles)
Robert DiLella Jr.. I'm just checking it all out. This is a new studio set up.
Erin Blankenship. Oh, this is your first time? In this-- Since you edited or fixed it?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Second, right? Second. Yeah, but I just I don't know, it's cozier than it was before. I don't know if it's good. It's because it's cold out. Good cozy? Good cozy. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, in a good way, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it feels better. Yeah, amongst the junk storage room. They don't see.
(Laughing)
Erin Blankenship. Isn't that the way most things? Yeah.,?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, make the most of it, yeah. So, do you have a relationship with Kathleen Pazadoma?
Erin Blankenship. I've only met her a couple times. We have several board members that are probably donors to her But no, not yet. We've had representative Benarosh in for a tour and things like that. And hopefully later, after the whole box car thing starts up, we'll have a kick off event and hopefully they'll come and speak at it. So we'll see.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So, I remember passing by that, I've passed by that box car for years and decades. I guess the Collier version of this was started by some students in a middle school.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, our school was I'm sorry, our museum was started by A teacher named David Bell at Golden Gate Middle School. And he gave his kids a project, his students a project, and they created a in-class exhibit. And people in the community found out about it. And after their unit or whatever was done, it went into storage, and then they opened it up to the public in some other spaces. And once the school was kind of done or wasn't able to do it anymore, then the Jewish Federation heard about it and some people got together and wrapped their arms around the project and created a museum.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's how it came about. Okay. And then they got, do all of them have a box car? And you worked at another one before, too, today.
Erin Blankenship. Yes, so no, not all, every Holocaust museum has a box car. I think there might be, I wanna say like seven or eight in the United States at various Holocaust museums. There are a few Holocaust museums. There's one in Illinois, there's several in Florida. There's a couple, or actually three, I think, in Texas. And of those, there's two box cars there. There's two box cars here in Florida and a few others in some other places.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And are they the actual--
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, ours is a World War II era box car. Of all of the box cars that are in the US None of them has any definite proof that, yes, I keep hitting this. Because I talk with my hands.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I do the same, I know.
Erin Blankenship. If I tip it or if I, oh no, it won't go any further. If you want, here, let me see if I can-- I'm afraid I'll hit it and change the sound or something.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I'm with you, I know, I'm thinking we gotta get a better-- Let's
Erin Blankenship. Like No, that's okay. We weren't recording anyway, right? So I can Oh, that might be a little bit better, because yeah, it's not right here in front of my hands. Cool Sometimes I gotta find it a little bit. That's okay. So there are several in the US. I think all of the ones that the museums have are all European box cars. Ours is from Austria. But none of them have any definite proof that they were used for sure. But the Nazi railway system that Or the trains that they used to deport people from all over Europe, really, I mean, with the exception of places like Sweden and England, those places didn't have any deportees, but they were coming from all over Europe.
Erin Blankenship. So it's very likely, I will say I don't want to advertise for the Southern Museum, but the museum where I was, the box car there is the only box car to ever have evidence found that it was used to transport civilians, because box cars were used for cattle And even used to transport soldiers to and from war Or to battle fronts and things like that, and of course, cargo. But that box car, when it was being conserved, they found a child's ring in it. So, or I should say somebody with a petite hand. And so that's the only one that has some sort of Definite kind of evidence found in it.
Erin Blankenship. But I will say that the Nazis were excellent record keepers, and despite that, and despite the fact that all of these box cars that are here in the country have serial numbers on them, none of them were ever recorded as far as their, they have transport lists, the Nazis kept lists of every person that was on their transports, but not necessarily by box car. So, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Okay. Why are there these museums? I remember thinking that to myself in Naples, like in the, it used to be on the trail just south of Pine Ridge Road, and seeing this box car there.
Erin Blankenship. Well, I would say that if you look, and you watch the news And you look at current events, it's very evident why there's a need to teach the lessons of the Holocaust, and that's what these museums do. And I think that at least in the case of our community, the community members felt that there is a need to continue to teach this history, and wanted to fund and create a place where students can come and hear the facts and the truth about what happened during World War II.
Erin Blankenship. And not only that, but hear the stories of Holocaust survivors, because we know that in terms of making those real connections, and developing empathy, and really inspiring people to action to make a better community, or to make positive changes in their world, it's through individual stories. So preserving and telling survivor stories are really key for us.
Robert DiLella Jr.. As more time goes on, we'll become the voice of those people because there's so few of them remaining. And you're that vessel for those voices and carrying that forward. What stood out to you and the people that you've met over the years, because you've been doing this a long time.
Erin Blankenship. Well, I mean, I think I actually talked about this the other day. Survivors are all, or at least the ones who are telling their stories They find it to be a necessity to tell their stories. They feel an urgency. I mean, that is the biggest thing when survivors are telling their stories, or make, say, sign up to speak to a student group, or to an adult group, or whatever. It's because they know that these stories are important for people to hear. Because we know that during the Holocaust, there were far few people that were willing to stand up for their neighbors.
Erin Blankenship. Whether it was just a simple thing of feeding somebody who is hungry Or I should say a seemingly simple thing, or some people who actually took up arms to resist. Too few people did that. And I think survivors wanna tell these stories because they want to show that All of us living today have the opportunity to make positive changes in another person's life. Whether it's sticking up for someone in a bullying situation, to challenge bias. Right now, we're seeing a huge, horrible influx of antisemitism. And now, even now, survivors are finding that their stories are even more powerful than they were 10, 20 years ago because of what's going on today.
Erin Blankenship. So I wouldn't say it's not like they're surprises, but every survivor's story is so unique and so inspiring. And I've worked with survivors of all different types of stories, survivors who were hidden by their neighbors, their non-Jewish neighbors, or survivors that were interned in a camp, or in a ghetto Or survivors that fled to Denmark and were saved by fishermen who ferried them to Sweden. All sorts of different stories. And I will say that the one thing that I've seen in survivors is their resilience to just overcome. And they're usually the most happy, generous, thoughtful people you could ever meet. And I've known quite a few, and unfortunately, lost many of them.
Erin Blankenship. But we're lucky today that we still have a few left that are willing to tell their stories.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Resilience, I think, is such a perfect term. I read the book, and it changed my life forever. A Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Trinkle. And then had an opportunity a couple years ago. My wife had a business meeting in Germany, and we went to Munich, and we took a train to Dachau. And I could feel the emotion right now just thinking about it. And I remember seeing the wall of the prisoners, and it was a picture, it was a big, big picture. They were emaciated and frail, and there was nothing left of them. And these huge smiles on their faces. And it was because the American troops had just arrived. Right. And they were Being liberated.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And what they had to endure, I will never, ever know, but what they went through in that moment where they had nothing, they were nothing, and this happiness on their faces. See the American soldiers there? It just left a mark on me that being there physically and being in the spot where Victor Trinkle talks about where he was there, and just that was There's no way that could be put into words in any way, like the experience of that. And see the museum having that impact, being in a boxcar, how they transport, boxcars weren't designed for people to be in there, not made for that, and the circumstances.
Erin Blankenship. Right, I mean, it was a horrible, horrible experience, and while we don't try to recreate an experience of a Holocaust survivor or a victim in a boxcar, or even in our museum, I think it just gives people the opportunity, at least when seeing our boxcar, to get up close and personal with an artifact that's really become a symbol of the Holocaust And to hear how, for so many people, the boxcar, or a boxcar, was really that first place where victims encountered death, because they were forced to be in these boxcars sometimes for days on end without food, without water, without facilities, and people died on these trips.
Erin Blankenship. And so it's just, it's really a privilege to be able to interact with an artifact like that And to be able to share it. I always say it's a privilege to be able to share these stories.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How do you determine where the line is of you wanna show what it was like, but you also have to be I don't know, if a kid is coming to see it, do you have to, where do you decide, how do you make that decision about what's too much to show or what's too much to see?
Erin Blankenship. Well, I think there's, first there's the age, right? So for example, we don't encourage student groups for under fifth grade, and that's because I think murder is a complicated and horrific story to have to tell, but when you have to tell essentially 10 year olds or 11 year olds about the mass murder and persecution of six million people, innocent people, including a million and a half children, that's a very complicated issue. I think it's a complicated issue for adults to map their--
Robert DiLella Jr.. To fathom that number, yes.
Erin Blankenship. So when you, for kids that are 11 years old, it's very difficult. So for example When we have school groups, we do have school groups that are in the fifth, sixth, seventh grade, when those younger ages come in, we actually talk more about rescue stories. For example, they do an activity when they come to the museum about the Danish rescue, which I mentioned was when in 1943 Danish fishermen, all non-Jews, and other citizens hid the Jews for several weeks in October before bringing them to the coast and ferrying them to Sweden, which was neutral. It's a wonderful story about how the average Joe can really make a difference in somebody's life.
Erin Blankenship. And those types of stories I think are really impactful, and when the kids come and they're from an older group, they might hear different types of stories. We have a survivor that is still telling his story, who as a child was interned in a transit camp in Holland called Westerbork And then in Teresnstadt, which was in, what was then Czechoslovakia, and that was often a stopover before going to Auschwitz. They were lucky in that they were never deported to Auschwitz because they had citizenship papers to El Salvador, I think. So we have people that have experienced A little more difficult history, although I don't like to compare suffering for older groups.
Erin Blankenship. So we try to tailor them to the groups. We also look at what the kids are learning in school and try to teach them to go along with what the teachers are already doing in their classrooms. But we want people to understand what it was like through survivors, through their stories. So we rely heavily on survivor testimony. We have several places in the museum where people can watch clips and listen to survivors tell their stories, and all sorts of stories.
Erin Blankenship. People who were sent to Auschwitz or a survivor's story when they witnessed Kristallnacht, which was a pogrom in 1938 When the Jews of Germany and Austria were basically victimized through this What was meant to look like spontaneous riots against the Jewish community, but was not. So there are all sorts of stories we tell, but always through the eyes of survivors. And the objects and artifacts that people see are also from survivors and their families, and they're all people that settled here in Southwest Florida.
Erin Blankenship. And I think that's always something we like to point out, that this seems like a very distant historical event, and in some ways it is, but a lot of these people are still living here in this community.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Keeping the study of history in the foreground, and you mentioned that Florida has a mandate to keep that in the curriculum, which I think is fantastic, that they're not gonna pretend history didn't happen. They're gonna hide it or say it never was, and to keep it in the foreground. I guess what is the Your relationship to this, because you've done this most of your career, a lot of your career. Yeah, yeah, why?
Erin Blankenship. I don't have a personal connection to this history. I'm not Jewish. Actually, I take that back. I'm not Jewish, but now I feel like I have a personal connection, because the survivors that I've talked about have all been my friends, some of them close, because they would volunteer at where I used to work, day in and day out, in the gift shop, or telling their story to kids, or helping us fold envelopes, whatever. And they were really wonderful, great people, so I do have those personal connections.
Erin Blankenship. And I think that there's a misconception that it's the Jewish community's problem to tell this story, or it's the Jewish community's problem to work to combat antisemitism, especially now. But it's not, it's our problem. This is a human problem, a problem of hate, of seeing others as less than. I feel like I'm a human being, therefore it's my responsibility. Laying aside even my personal connections and relationships with our volunteers and our staff, and Holocaust survivors, those are all very important to me, but I do this because I need to, because it's the right thing to do.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What is antisemitism?
Erin Blankenship. I mean antisemitism plain and simple is Jew hatred. It's the hatred of Jews, or hatred and persecution of Jews. And unfortunately, sometimes it's called the oldest hatred, because it's been around since the beginning of Christianity. And we see it cycle and change sometimes. There's different ways that antisemitism can look. Under the Nazis, they chose to look at it through a racial lens. And we see it today when people are saying, Jews control the media, or Jews control the government. I mean, this is such a small population of the world, the world's population. It's literally impossible, first of all.
Erin Blankenship. And also to blame the ills of the world on one group of people is absolutely ridiculous. So unfortunately, I think last year, the ADL reported a 344% rise in antisemitic incidents in the US over the previous year, which is, it's mind boggling. I've been doing this work for 25 years, and I've never seen it like this. No other museum There's not very many museums that have to have armed guards when people walk in the building. People have guards, art museums have guards to protect the artwork. We actually have to have guards to protect the individuals that visit the museum and our survivors and our staff.
Erin Blankenship. And it's because of antisemitism, because even though we are not actually a Jewish museum, we tell this story, which happened to the Jewish people. We're not actually a Jewish museum, but we're seeing that way through the community, and that's fine. But organizations like ours are targets. And I've seen that in the place I used to work when it was vandalized a few times, actually. Most recently in 2021, I think And there's been, if you look at other museums And Holocaust centers, education centers, there's definitely been violence.
Robert DiLella Jr.. This has just taught hatred, like hatred to teaching people just to hate because.
Erin Blankenship. Right, I mean, I think that sometimes antisemitism can be very insidious in that people use certain terms that become unfortunately normalized. I don't wanna repeat them. So just things about Jews and money, they don't even think are antisemitic, but they're based on age-old stereotypes and certainly not positive stereotypes. And I think I see it in things that are handed down from parents to kids or from their peers, from peer to peer. And we try to make sure that students and adults that come to the museum, we give them these facts about what antisemitism looks like. It doesn't always look like the Holocaust, of course.
Erin Blankenship. But so that they can identify it when they hear it, when they hear it in a conversation, and I do all the time, still, people, even though I work at a Holocaust museum and people know it, I still hear people say things that I have to check them on. So we want people to be able to identify what it looks like and to be able to have the language and the knowledge that they need to counter it, to say, hey, wait a minute, what you're saying is incorrect and here are the facts. So that's what we try to do. Whether it's teaching about the Holocaust or teaching about contemporary antisemitism or some of these stereotypes that led to the Holocaust.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Recently, there were these videos released with AI of Hitler speaking in English and saying what he was saying. And that was so disturbing to me because I've never, you hear the German version, which I have no idea what he's saying, it just sounded like this angry man. But to hear it translated and to watch him speak that way was jarring to me. They see it in a way, I'd never seen it before. Because I just had in school just kind of written it off as this wacky guy who was angry, but he was articulate in what he was saying and got a mass of people. To believe in this, whatever he was making up and just getting it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I love that there is this study of history to see because history does tend to repeat itself over and to understand how could this many people, and there's a book Dr. Jordan Peterson One of the books that he talks about a lot is about these police officers, I believe, in Poland and how they were doing atrocious things to people. And they knew it was wrong. They knew it was not right to do, because the masses were going with it was so hard to dissent is what he was saying.
Robert DiLella Jr.. The psychology of a human, when the masses are going one way, to go the other way was very, very difficult and they would do things that were horrible and they knew they were horrible and this mass population ended up with that mindset.
Erin Blankenship. During World War II The Nazis would not have been able to murder six million men, women, and children without the help of Polish policemen or Ukrainian policemen and other collaborators in all of the areas in which they got occupied. They relied on the cooperation of those people. And of course, not every poll was a collaborator. There's many, many who rescued Jews, too few still. I think a lot of people like to point out that so many did, but it was still too few. So we also teach about that, about how hard it is to step away and break away from your friends or from your colleagues who are saying something and to stand up.
Erin Blankenship. But that's why we always try to lay out the facts, give people the tools they need to contradict that type of thought. We see it happen all the time, especially with social media. And I know we're trying to do So last year we had a propaganda exhibit about this and we're creating what we call a pop-up exhibit that we can send to schools. And we're doing this over the summer so that they'll have it for the next school year focused on not just propaganda during World War II, but propaganda in general and media literacy, which is one of the mandates or benchmarks for teachers to teach about media literacy.
Erin Blankenship. So that students who think they're getting the real facts on social media can say, okay, wait a minute, do I need to go back and look this up? Is this true? What are the sources and find out for themselves? And so that's going to be a major focus for us in the next school year. We're winding down with school groups and school tours, although we still have a couple months left of a busy education schedule, but that's something we're focusing on because it's proven to be extremely important right now.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Propaganda is ability to spread propaganda.
Erin Blankenship. And there's good propaganda and we talk about that, like advertising, right? I mean, there's flyers that were dropped by the U.S. Army during the war and civilian areas to warn them and those types of things, but the propaganda that we saw during the Nazis times were showing Jews in these horrible stereotypical caricatures and blaming them for the loss of World War I and things like that. So we are trying to show students that you don't just take things at face value, but to really dive a little bit deeper, just a little bit. And you can usually find out the real facts and truth about what you're reading.
Robert DiLella Jr.. He used that, their loss of World War I Used that to get the people fired up and that's what he did with simply on the Jews. Exactly, exactly.
Erin Blankenship. Unfortunately, the Jewish community has been a scapegoat for a lot of different nations ills over the thousands of years, and Hitler took advantage of that for sure. He blamed the loss of World War I on the Jewish soldiers who didn't fight the right way or and certainly with the economics between the wars too Blaming that on the Jewish community to get those millions of people to go along with this anti-Semitic campaign, I guess you wanna call it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. He was very good at that. Study of what he did and how he could get People who were good people to change, to be another way to change.
Erin Blankenship. Right, and I mean, it wasn't just him. I mean, he had high ranking officials that all went along with it. Some even tried to back it up with science, with the study of eugenics. When the There was a conference held in Berlin called the Wannsee Conference, and it brought together all of these high ranking Nazi officials, and they were not dumb people. They were people with PhDs. They were lawyers, they were physicians Military strategists. They all got together and decided that they would, their goal would be to get rid of the Jewish population Throughout Europe, and they decided that in just a few hours.
Erin Blankenship. So it wasn't Germany was a very, very civilized country, very advanced in terms of education and scientific breakthroughs and all of these things, and yet they still decided to do this, based on a pseudoscience.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Why is there that I don't know if it's a conversation or just nonsense, some of it I think is that the Jews control the media, the Jews, this attack against them still in this, and by young people, people don't have a clue about that, really, unless they read about it, but I don't think they do
Erin Blankenship. Because they-- Well, that's it, right, that's it. No, I mean, I think it's partly because of social media. Social media is propagating a lot of these lies, and I also think that a lot of these individuals are getting Wrapped up isn't really the right word, but it's what other peers are saying And or you see it a lot in some college protests, and I think individuals wanting to make a difference, and unfortunately, just going with the flow rather than really thinking about the things that they're saying and the ideas that they're espousing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oddly, that's what they were doing back then, too.
Erin Blankenship. Right, right, right. I think that's part of the problem That people are really not, there is a, I don't wanna call it a willful ignorance, but just people really not thinking for themselves And again, it's a really divisive time in this country. I mean, we have so many issues as a country, of course, just like every other country And people always want someone to blame, and yes, we did see that during Nazi Germany And unfortunately, the Jews are being scapegoated right now, and it's just horrific to see. I would never in a million years want anybody to suffer the types of things that I'm seeing and hearing Especially when they're your friends, but even still.
Erin Blankenship. And I think it's, we all need to make sure that we're willing to speak up, and if we don't know enough, we feel like we don't know enough to speak up, we need to get the facts, whether it's doing our own research, talking to people in the community, whatever needs to happen, but we should all figure out a way, and not only figure out a way, but find opportunities to speak out.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And we're in the greatest place in the world to be able to do that, the United States, which I love, is allowed to say and express ourselves. I was never more proud when I visited Dachau of our country than when I saw those pictures, which still, to this day, are embedded in my heart.
Erin Blankenship. Right, and you had, There are General Eisenhower and others made it a point to make sure that those photographs were taken at liberation so that people had evidence of what had happened, because we're still living in a time, and it's coming up again and again, where people are denying that the Holocaust even occurred.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Why, how could they deny that?
Erin Blankenship. It's a form of antisemitism. I mean, to say, the same people sometimes that say the Holocaust didn't happen are the same people that are cheering that it did. Were you people, either they're saying it never happened, or they're saying, oh, well, it happened, but it was far fewer people. All of these lies, and it's pure and simple. They either wanna say that the Jews have made making it up, or that they're just claiming victimhood rather than this actual story being very, very true Because the evidence is there.
Erin Blankenship. We had people who survived, we had the Nazis who kept excellent records, and the images that came out after liberation And if you look purely in the terms of the statistics, how many people were alive before the war in the Jewish community in all these countries, and how many people were left. I mean, the Jewish population, and I can't remember the number right now off the top of my head Is still not back to where it was pre-Holocaust, in terms of worldwide population of Jews. So, I mean, that there tells you that this horrible genocide occurred.
Robert DiLella Jr.. The resilience of their spirit is remarkable to me. One of my other favorite books is Thou Shall Prosper by Daniel Lapin. I don't know how you pronounce his name. He's a rabbi who talks about the success of Jews in business, how they're really good at business. And I admire that. I think it's fascinating to me that they represent a small population of the, global population of the world, but yet they're very, very effective and good at business. And he just talks about some of the--
Erin Blankenship. Right, obviously not every Jewish person, but I think that there's In a lot of the Jewish communities, there's a culture of education and Really, what's the word? Investing in education is very important too. Many Jewish communities, not everywhere But I think that's why you see some individuals being very successful in different industries.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, which is, that's something I admire. That's a good thing, I look up to them for that because in the book he was teaching about how And why that is, just that there's a spirit amongst them that is resilient and amazing. So I was just admiring it from that perspective, not saying that they control everything. They didn't become, doesn't seem to me that they become victims of that. It happened and yet their lives, they want people to know that it happened and I get that part of it because I think history is so important. And the more I learn about it, later in life, because I didn't pay attention much in school or it didn't seem like it sunk in, it was so far removed.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Anything in black and white was removed for me, like, oh, that was black and white, I was like, it's different. Not my life.
Erin Blankenship. And I think the way it's taught has changed over the years, whether some teachers only wanna teach about the Holocaust in terms of a textbook These photos that we have seen over and over again, and dates and historic events. And the way we teach it is through stories, through stories of people.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So there's something about you that's had you have this be your life's mission. Who's had a big influence on you growing up?
Erin Blankenship. My mother. I lost my mom a couple years ago, so.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I'm sorry.
Erin Blankenship. I mean, no doubt that my mother, of course We grew up in a very tiny, tiny town. No diversity at all in my town. I don't know if there was any Jewish people living in my town. But we were from New York. We knew lots of Jewish people in New York, and my mother grew up with lots of Jewish people in New York, and my mother grew up with lots of Jewish friends in a diverse school too. And so people were just people. And that's how I was brought up. But my mother was also very generous. When I was in high school, she took in unwed mothers who were pregnant and kicked out of their homes so that they could have a place to live, which is very interesting now that I think back.
Erin Blankenship. Because still having a child at home, she did those, very, very brave. And she volunteered and did all sorts of great things too besides working full time. So she was a huge influence on my life. Obviously, so many Holocaust survivors that I've worked with. And just the fact that they could get up every morning with a huge smile on their face because they had the opportunity to speak to students. Because I saw it every single day, and I still see it every single day, these people that are so very generous to tell this most horrific story of their life with strangers, just because they wanted to make the world a better place. Wonderful impact, but in different ways.
Erin Blankenship. But I mean, I would definitely say my mother and... There was a Holocaust survivor I used to work with. Her name was Eva. And she survived Auschwitz. With her mother, her father was immediately murdered when they arrived, but her mother survived. She unfortunately passed away two weeks later because she had typhus. But Eva was a volunteer where I used to work. Every Friday she and her husband, who was also a survivor, but he emigrated before the war started. Every Friday they worked in the museum store. And she never, ever, ever wanted to tell her story because it was very hard for her. And finally she agreed that she would be interviewed for our archives.
Erin Blankenship. And the morning of, she told me no. She couldn't do it because she had had nightmares for the last week, just getting ready to tell the anxiety of having to tell her story. And so she was never recorded like in that typical, what we call a regular survivor testimony, a traditional survivor testimony interview. But towards the end of her life, she would come out from behind the gift shop when she'd see people looking at photos of her as a child in the exhibit. And she'd walk up to them and she'd point herself out and she'd tell little bits of her story.
Erin Blankenship. And I think it's because of that urgency that I spoke about that she knew that, she was an elderly woman, so she knew that she didn't have that much. She was healthy and everything, so it's not like she was dying or anything. But she knew she had a limited time and she wanted to make sure that people remembered her. And remembered her name and remembered her story. That's why I do what I do.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What was your mom's name?
Erin Blankenship. My mom's name was Debbie.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Debbie? How would she describe you? Oh.
Erin Blankenship. And optimistic. My husband and my mom, my mother would probably say the same thing, but my husband always tells me that sometimes he says that I always look for the best in people and sometimes I shouldn't. Because I do. I always like to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I don't hold grudges or at least I try not to. And I think that comes from my mom.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How did she pass?
Erin Blankenship. She had a Her family, her mother and her brother all had some heart disease, a familial hypocolestrol or high cholesterol. And so she died from heart failure. She had an LVAD, do you know what that is? It's a left ventricle assist device, which is like transplanted into the heart. It's like a motor for your heart. In the last couple years of her life that happened and she had to carry around an external battery that had a line and it had a fright, whoops, within like six months of her having it, they realized she had an infection in it. And the infection is what ultimately caused her passing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Did, she was gonna go? Were you with her?
Erin Blankenship. So she had, she was like sick. This was spring of 21. I was in the middle of interviewing Holocaust survivors in this very in-depth new technology that I was doing this week-long project. And I took the weekend to go with her to Orlando and she was just really like no energy and I couldn't figure out. And so I took her to the ER in Orlando. We lived in St. Pete. And she had, one of her heart ventricles had basically failed and they were gonna do nothing and then they finally settled on doing this LVAD thing, which gives, it's not like a It could give her up to 15 more years. And so they did that and it should have been fine.
Erin Blankenship. She was great for a while, but then she got this infection. And I don't think any of us really knew about it was. And I talked to her the morning she died, but she had been rushed to the ER because she fell and couldn't get back up. But she fell because it had caused an infection in her, like it went to her nervous system and so she had some pain and stuff in her hip and lower back and that's how she died. I'm glad I got to talk to her that morning, but obviously I would have talked to her about a bunch of different things. I was in Maine at the time for work And unfortunately I wasn't there.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I'm sorry, but I do appreciate you sharing about your mom because I know I can tell you had a great relationship with your mom, it was really special. I love hearing good mommy stories. Yeah, especially when they're good people like that. You were connected with her your whole life. It was not a period of time where she kicked you out of the nest and you were on your own, but you were still related together for--
Co-host. Oh yeah, no, my mother was like, I mean, she probably would have let me live with her forever.
(Laughing)
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's beautiful. That's awesome. Well, she did a good job on you. That's great. If you weren't doing this, what do you think you'd be doing?
Erin Blankenship. I think I would still be doing something with, this nonprofit world that I work in, because the museum is a nonprofit. So it gave me back to the community in some other way. To help women who were pregnant who didn't have a place to go. So that's
Co-host. And also, I think it's a good thing because of different ways it's touched people in my family.
Erin Blankenship. I have family members who have benefited from women's shelters and things like that. So I probably would have done something else in one of those types of nonprofits. I can't picture myself doing something else. I was gonna, I originally went to, my first year of college, I went for kinesiology because I used to dance. But I can't even imagine that now. So yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So there's a dancer in you.
Erin Blankenship. My last, when we were still living in Maine before I transferred universities, I had my own dance studio for a few years.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Wow, really? Yeah. How did you get into your first job in this, in the Holocaust world?
Erin Blankenship. I was a year out of college. I was working as an admin for an engineering firm. And when I was in school, I had done an internship at a art museum and I knew I wanted to work in a museum. And so a position opened up at the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Pete for a registrar. And the registrar is the person that takes care of the collection, that catalogs it, that does some preservation, that preps things for exhibit, things like that. And that was the position that was open and I applied for it. I had done some of that in my internship position at another local museum. And I got that job.
Erin Blankenship. And when I first started at the Holocaust Museum, I had taken a couple courses in college that touched on the Holocaust or were about it. And I learned about it in school, but I didn't know nearly what I know now, of course. So hadn't yet been a passion, but it was really, I mean, working with Holocaust survivors, working with their family members, their children. I mean, I couldn't help but feel the same, maybe not the same urgency, but feel that same passion about wanting to tell this story. I couldn't, there's nothing else I could have done.
Erin Blankenship. And so I learned about their Holocaust survivor stories through them, through those relationships, but also through all of the materials that they've donated. And like our museum, we receive a lot of materials, artifacts donated from local survivors and their families. So getting to be a steward of those things is pretty special. It's definitely a privilege. I feel so lucky to have done this work.
Robert DiLella Jr.. In visiting the local museum, what are some things that would be interesting to see?
Erin Blankenship. So we tell the story of the Holocaust, very chronologically as one might expect But we do it through the stories of locals Or Holocaust survivors who've come to the United States and decided to settle in Southwest Florida. So for example People visiting the museum will read the story of Renee Fritz, who was a hidden child. She was hidden in a convent in Belgium and see she was raised as a Catholic, even though she was Jewish, while she was in hiding. And so you'll see her first communion veil. It's one of my favorite objects that we have on view.
Erin Blankenship. Or the story of Rob Nossen, who I spoke about earlier A survivor of a camp called Teresnostat in Czechoslovakia, and hear about his story through some objects and through his testimonies and stories that he shared. So I could go on and on. We have survivors of Auschwitz where we have their testimonies, and we have a gallery that's specifically about Auschwitz. So we have their testimonies available to individuals to listen to and to watch. And so people will hear the history through individual stories. And our exhibit ends with, of course, liberation.
Erin Blankenship. And we talk about some liberators, some American GIs who liberated these camps, and what happened in the post-war years with survivors not being able to return home Because they were not met with welcome signs and cheering. They were met with a lot of aggression in most cases.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Why?
Erin Blankenship. Well, a lot of times non-Jews moved into their homes. They benefited from the Jews being deported and murdered. Yeah, I mean, it happened a lot. I remember talking with one A woman whose husband was a survivor, and she was telling me about how they went to visit Poland just so he could show her where he was from and things like that. And they knocked on the door of where he used to live and just said, "Can we come in and just so I can show my wife? I don't want anything." And they could see he saw his furniture that he remembered as a child in the house through that open door. This happened in, I don't want to say most cases, but a lot of cases.
Erin Blankenship. Or there were some places where Jews returned to their town and they were met with violence. That happened in a number of places. Or their apartment buildings, their homes, were raised to the ground because of war. That happened. So they were, if one couldn't emigrate or go back to their home right away, they were in DP camps, displaced persons camps for years and years and years. All the way up into the, I think 1956 was when the last DP camp. Yeah. Yeah, and it's a very interesting history because a lot of the first DP camps were in the same places as the concentration camps. And sometimes they were housed with displaced Germans, which was very difficult.
Erin Blankenship. And conditions weren't great there either with disease and lack of medical care. So there was something called, I think the Harrison Report where a report was written on these DP camps to the State Department. And it wasn't until after that conditions improved. But DP camps were kind of that first place where Holocaust survivors kind of came back to life. There was a huge baby boom. As there was after the war anyway. But in these DP camps, so many survivors got, married other survivors and had children in the DP camps before they emigrated to the US or some, I mean, there's survivor communities in Australia, in South Africa, in South America, lots of different places.
Erin Blankenship. And so we also tell that story. We have a few objects, like we have a little baby's winter coat that was made in a displaced person camp. For a child that was born in a DP camp. And we also tell the story of post-war justice, of what Nuremberg was all about and how it really set the precedent for other future war crimes trials. Our exhibit ends with a gallery that's all about contemporary hate Contemporary genocide. So we talk a little bit about what the The identifiers for genocide are. So people can understand what's going on in the world when they watch the news. And we also talk about upstanders. And that's really what we want our educational programs.
Erin Blankenship. That's the goal of our educational programs, to create upstanders, people in the community that are willing to speak out, stand up, do the right thing. And so we talk about a few examples of those types of people too.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That word is upstanders?
Erin Blankenship. Upstanders.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, I saw that in researching this. What does that mean?
Erin Blankenship. Well, during the war and during the Holocaust, we talk about when we bring groups through or adults, we focus that story through the lens of four people. You have perpetrators, of course, victims, you have bystanders, people who saw what was happening. They might not have agreed with what was happening, but they did nothing. And that was the biggest majority of people. And what we call upstanders.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And those are the-- So say that again, bystanders Say what a bystander was doing.
Erin Blankenship. A bystander is somebody who did nothing, who just watched what was going on and decided, decided it is a choice to do nothing. And that's the vast majority of people during the war. Your ordinary citizens who just went along with it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Knew it was wrong.
Erin Blankenship. Knew it was wrong or agreed with it, but still, but didn't take part. Did not take an active role. And then the upstanders are those who took on an active role, who did something. And there are all sorts of different types of examples of upstanders. During the Holocaust, you had people that actually There was a Japanese diplomat, Chiyun-I Sugihara, who forged visas for people. There was Shindler, Oscar Shindler. People know his story.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's the movie Shindler's List.
Erin Blankenship. Exactly, exactly. So he used the slave labor from the camps to save, I mean, he employed, isn't the right word, but he basically had all of these Jews working in his factory and was able to save them because of that. Or Meeb Gies, who was one of the people who helped the Anne Frank family while they were in hiding, all sorts of these stories, people who hid their neighbors. And, there's lots of, those are all the famous ones.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Upstanders.
Erin Blankenship. Upstanders. And there are people, there are even Jewish upstanders. You have lots of Jewish resistance fighters. For example There was a group of people we call them the Belski brothers, but it was Tuvia Zusz and Ossoyo Belski who led the largest armed resistance and rescue of Jews by Jews during the war. They saved 1,200 Jews living in the forest of Belarus. And they were, most of these people were not diplomats. Most of these people were just your everyday, normal person going to work, coming home Who just made the decision to do the right thing. And sometimes it's a big decision and sometimes it was a little thing, but sometimes that's all it takes.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What's an example of a modern day upstander? In a middle school maybe.
Erin Blankenship. In a middle school, I mean, it's someone who, you see your friend being picked on and you either stand up for them right there against those who are doing the picking, or it's telling a teacher that this is happening and making sure it's stopped. That's an upstander. That's what we want people to be. Or, it can be There's also little things that people can do, writing your congresspeople for change that you wanna see happen. Obviously we all should vote. But we want people to take an active role in their communities to make small steps, to make things better.
Robert DiLella Jr.. The upstanders, I like that. Yes. Okay.
Erin Blankenship. We didn't make it up. I think it was originally-- It's been around. By Samantha Power. But in a lot of Holocaust museums use this term because it really is, we talk about bystanders versus victims or bystanders versus perpetrators. I mean, this is, we really have to recognize that during the Holocaust, there was a group of people, a small group of people, that made the choice to do. And I have, I knew survivors who, like one survivor, his name was Jerry, and he was hidden by a non-Jewish teen, just a teenager. This wasn't somebody with lots of his agency. He hid Jerry in his basement without his parents even knowing. And later he was hung for it.
Erin Blankenship. So, and that was a real threat for people who helped Jews during the Holocaust. Obviously now, the reprisal for doing such a thing or for standing up for your friend in the hall at school isn't gonna bring something like that. But, everything comes with a consequence. And usually though, it has a great outcome when people decide to do the right thing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Do you think there's a survivor locally that would come on here?
Erin Blankenship. Oh yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Really?
Erin Blankenship. Yes, of course. So next week we have our fundraising event, Triumpf, and we're honoring Rob Nossen, who is the survivor I talked to you about that was in Teres Nischat. He'd be a great interviewee. Awesome. Yeah. That's so cool. And we have a few people in our community, like another lady, her name is Felicia. She was born in a displaced persons camp, or another lady named Hadassah, who was also born in a displaced persons camp. And I think they have great stories to tell.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, people are amazing. All right, that would be great. I really enjoy that. I appreciate that. It's a whole segment that I never, the displacement, I thought once they were, the war was over and they were liberated, that was the end. Like everything went back to okay. Didn't know about that post era.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, and unfortunately, like, even if somebody went back to their home and let's say there was nobody living in, like they had nothing. And even, the people who came to this country or wherever they immigrated to, in most cases they went with nothing, absolutely nothing. So the vast majority of Holocaust survivors that I've known have, become very successful people, whether it's, in all different types of success, right? Like teachers and business people, philanthropists, all sorts of different stories here, their post war story, but started with literally nothing. Nothing but the clothes on their back or $5 to their name,.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, that'd be really awesome to talk to some of those people. Who's on your board?
Erin Blankenship. Who's on my board? We have lots of great, great active people on our board. They really care a lot about the mission. Our board chair is Stuart Mast. He's a retired physician from your neck of the woods from Philadelphia.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, a Philly guy.
Erin Blankenship. And you can definitely tell when you hear his accent.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, that's awesome.
Erin Blankenship. He His parents were survivors. His father survived Auschwitz. His mother survived as a part of a partisan group in the woods. We have some people on our board that are not necessarily connected with this history. Like we have one lady who Her name is Dottie. She's not Jewish, but she feels very, very passionate about this subject. Felicia is one of our board members. She says, what we call a 2G, a second generation. We have a few people that are children of survivors on our board. And they're from all over the place. So just everybody feeling very passionate about the mission.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How is the organization funded? How do you get money?
Erin Blankenship. So we have, most of our funding comes through private individuals, people who feel very passionate about our mission and about preserving this history and the stories of survivors. And then we do get a little bit of funding from the state or at least last year we did that covers all of our educational programs or some of our educational programs. And then locally we get some funding, for example, from the Collier County Community Foundation And some smaller family foundations as well.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And you have the event that's coming up as part of the fundraising?
Erin Blankenship. Yes, we have two fundraising events each year. One is in December, it's called the Luncheon. And we bring in a special speaker for that. The other, which is coming up next week on Wednesday the 4th Is called Triumph. And during that event, the program consists of course of us speaking. But we have two awards that we give out. The first is our Triumph Award. So Rob Nossen, our Holocaust survivor is getting that. And that's for people who have Made Have really overcome great odds and have given back to the community and to the museum. And then another award, and this year is our first, is our Humanitarian Award.
Erin Blankenship. We thought that since this is our 25th anniversary year, it would be a good time to introduce a new annual award. So we're giving out the Humanitarian Award this year to a woman named Paula Absol, who is a, she's a filmmaker. She used to be the executive producer for PBS Nova, the Nova series. And she's made a few more recent films about some different subjects within the Holocaust. One was specifically about resistance because one of the I think it's kind of a revision a Holocaust revisionist, a very anti-Semitic idea is that Jews went like lambs to slaughter, that they did nothing, or they contributed to their own demise. And so she really wanted to counter that.
Erin Blankenship. So she created this film about resistance, Jewish resistance during the war. And so she's getting our Humanitarian Award. But we have this event every year in March. So we're excited about it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, I don't know who does your, the organizing for those, but I'm sure your hands are involved in most. But we have whatever you may need for volunteers or prizes or gifts, we'll always contribute to whatever you might need. Oh, that's wonderful. Product, bags, or whatever we can do to support you. That's lovely, thank you. We'll always be here to do that for you too, yeah. So keep that in mind. And I'll make sure you get in touch with, or that Marina, who is our general manager, has your information. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The manager has your information so that she can get you whatever you need for throughout the year. Yeah, that's great.
Robert DiLella Jr.. If you wanna acknowledge volunteers or--
Erin Blankenship. When is this air?
Robert DiLella Jr.. No, it's on the schedule, Zach.
Erin Blankenship. So then the other thing that we didn't, I don't think we talked about it, is like I'm not telling the public until next week at Triumph So by the 10th, it'll be fine for Marina to mention the fact that Because of the grant from the state, we're installing our box car permanently at the museum. And it'll give people the opportunity to see, to get up close and personal with this artifact To tell part of the story of what happened to the Jews during World War II. And people who don't even get to come into the museum, for whatever reason, maybe they don't have time that day for a full museum visit, will still be able to see the box car because it'll be in our parking lot.
Erin Blankenship. So that's happening this year.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And where is that?
Erin Blankenship. That's at our location, which is at 975 Imperial Golf Course Boulevard.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What's the food that's near you? What's the restaurant that's near you? Jack's. Oh, okay, I know what Jack's is.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, so it's in the same parking lot as Jack's.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Okay, and the box car's gonna be in that parking lot?
Erin Blankenship. Yes, as a permanent installation. So for example, this year it's at a different school or a different library or community center every month.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, it stays for a month?
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, it stays for a month. But as of June, it'll come back to the museum. In June, it'll be there still on the tractor trailer, on the flatbed Until we basically have to It'll be a little bit of a construction site once we start the installation process, because it'll be fixed to the ground as opposed to being on a flatbed once that happens. But we're going to officially break ground probably this fall. Yeah, we're very, very excited about that. And that's funded largely through the state of Florida.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Great. Something that's been on my mind is, how do you disconnect your, because you disconnect yourself emotionally when you go home. And you've done this for year after year after year and been directly connected and involved emotionally invested in the people who have carried this with them for their lives. How do you do that?
Erin Blankenship. I don't really know, I just do. I mean, well, and I don't, it depends. I mean, I was up at three o'clock in the morning thinking about an idea, not necessarily thinking about the history so much as I was thinking about an idea, a new idea to tell the history. So I would say that I think about it all the time. And I would say that It's just part of me. I mean, it's been in the way I've raised my kids. It's been in the activities I like to do after work. I will say that I don't, at home I don't read books or watch movies usually about this history.
Robert DiLella Jr.. You could write them and direct them.
Erin Blankenship. Well, for one, a lot of what comes out is our fictional stories. And I don't think it's necessary. They're already the most amazing true stories to tell. And why spend time doing that one? I can tell the story of a real person that lived this history. So I try not to do that. And it's not because I don't think it's important or anything. I just That is one way that I try to step away from work. But most of the time I don't see it as work. Obviously there's, in anybody's job, there's parts of a job that are less likable than others, doing paperwork or expense reports or whatever it is.
Erin Blankenship. That's not as great as having to get to interact with Holocaust survivors or having to interview one or getting to tell stories. Those are all the best things. And I mean, I'm, thank God every day I get to do this work.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, we're lucky to have you in our community. Well, thanks. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, good. Shift gears a little bit, lighten it up a little bit. If your life was a movie, what would the opening soundtrack be?
Erin Blankenship. I have no idea. Cause you can look at that in terms of what's the most, that's something that you play the most often or something that's like a theme song. I really don't have one really. I mean, I
Robert DiLella Jr.. If your life was a movie, what would the opening soundtrack be?
Erin Blankenship. How Great Thou Art. It's a Christian hymn.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Beautiful. Oh, that's one that hasn't been on the podcast. I like that. I like that. Books that you're currently reading, have read or that are on your must read list.
Erin Blankenship. Okay. I'm currently reading Bear Town by Frederick Bachman. I think that's the name of the author. He wrote a man named Uva., the Tom Hanks, they made a movie. I think they called it something different in that movie, but a man named something they call, I don't know what they called him.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Was he like a cranky guy in that one?
Erin Blankenship. So he's the author of the book that inspired that. That was a good movie. Yeah, that was a good movie. Yeah, that was a good movie. And that was a good book. So I'm reading Bear Town right now.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Same author that wrote that. Okay.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah. I think that's part of a series, but this is the first one in the series.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Or just, yeah, books that you'd put on a list like you should probably read this. If you were telling somebody else, I keep a compilation of our guests, the books that are in there.
Erin Blankenship. Oh man. I mean, I read a lot. So I think my last, what I would call a five star read was, I think it was called Broken Country, but I can't remember the author. That was really great. You know, since I'm talking about what I do I think everybody should read Night by Elie Wiesel Which is his memoir, his experience during the Holocaust.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, okay.
Erin Blankenship. And certainly when reading things about the Holocaust, you should read real stories by real people that survived it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Any that you That stand out that you--
Erin Blankenship. Night for sure. Primo Levi's book, and I cannot remember the title of it, was excellent. He was a Holocaust survivor. What was the name? Primo Levi. R-I-M-O-L-E-V-I. There's a wonderful book by a granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. Her name is Rachel Serati. Her book is called
Robert DiLella Jr.. Her name.
Erin Blankenship. Rachel Serati.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Okay, we'll get it from that.
Erin Blankenship. She's a good friend of mine.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, awesome.
Erin Blankenship. She would be appalled that I can't remember the name of her book.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So how do you spell it? She got a sack? I spell.
Erin Blankenship. C-E-R-O-T-T-I. C-E-R-O-T-T-I. Yeah. So this young lady, she's, I think in her early 30s, she wrote this book, which details-- We Show the Same Sky. Oh my goodness. So it's called We Show the Same Sky. It's an excellent, excellent memoir. And it's her story as a granddaughter who basically followed her grandmother's footsteps. As a young woman, she decided that she would go every place that her grandmother went in the same order. So her grandmother was from Czechoslovakia and went to Denmark as a teen.
Erin Blankenship. Her parents sent her to Denmark as a teen where she would go to learn some agricultural skills to prepare herself to go to what was then British Mandate Palestine to work on a kibbutz or something like that, which were agricultural communities. And instead, Denmark was occupied by the Nazis in 1941. And in 43 Their Jewish, Danish fishermen and regular individuals ferried their Jewish Neighbors and civilians and refugees like Hannah. Hannah was her name, to Sweden. And so Rachel went from Czechoslovakia, met some of the family members.
Erin Blankenship. Her grandmother's family were all murdered in Sobibor, I think, but went from there to Denmark, to Sweden, back to the US, and across the country to California, which was all part of her grandmother's trip, and wrote about the people that she met that were connected with this history and how it was for her as a granddaughter to be telling and saving this story. So I worked with her on an exhibit as well about this. So it's an excellent, excellent memoir and it really talks about what it's like as a granddaughter with this kind of legacy.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, we share the same sky. I love that title.
Erin Blankenship. Yes, I think she said her mother-in-law Used to say that,? Because we all share the same sky.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, that's cool.
Erin Blankenship. Especially, knowing that her grandmother was saved because of the kindness of others.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Any podcasts that you're a regular of?
Erin Blankenship. Well, we share the same sky as a podcast.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, it's a podcast, yeah.
Erin Blankenship. Also, it started as a podcast before she wrote the book. And it's excellent, excellent, it has testimonies in there, it has all of her trips. So since she said that, that's a great one. I also listen to some things that I, when I want my brain to be off, like My Favorite Murder. I'm sure you've heard of that. It's a famous podcast about true crime.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, yeah, I'm a true, I'm a jumpy man.
Erin Blankenship. It's a comedy true crime podcast.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, is it? Yes. I don't know that one, though, yeah.
Erin Blankenship. It's been out for a long time, so I like that one. And I also listen to I'm All Over the Place. Oh, shoot, I don't, it's Barry Weiss's podcast, but I can't think of the name of it. Yeah, honestly, I think it's called, but it's not. Just like a news, politics news podcast, but not very often, I don't really, I listen to a lot of books, too. So I read a lot of books and I also listen to a lot of books.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's how I mostly consume books, is through Audible, too.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, it takes me 30 minutes or sometimes an hour to get to or from work, so I listen in the car.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, it's a great use of time. In fact, I just downloaded all my Audible books so that I have them and it's not just on Audible, but then I created my own little catalog of them.
Erin Blankenship. Oh, that's good. Because I have it, yeah. I use the library. The library has really great apps. Sometimes you have to wait for an audiobook to get available.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, how's that work? What do you mean?
Erin Blankenship. So if you have a library card, you can use I use Libby is one, or I think it's called iCloud Library or something like that. And both of those apps are through the same library system and you can just search for your book. Sometimes they don't have it available or sometimes other people are watching however many are listening to, however many are already licensed to that particular library and you might have to wait and put a hold on it just like you would for a physical book. But it's an actual, it's the same as what you would hear in Audible with like actors or whatever reading the books.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, I didn't know what the library was used for these days. It's completely free. Yeah, that's cool. I didn't know that, yeah.
Erin Blankenship. It's free, which is the best part. Especially because I read them all the time. And you don't have to go there. You don't spend a lot of money with all of them.
Robert DiLella Jr.. You do it online, you don't have to go there. That's great, I didn't know that. I love that.
Erin Blankenship. Now,.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, I like that.
Erin Blankenship. You just have to get a library card.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, okay. I guess I haven't done that in a long time. But yeah, there's a use for that, okay. That's great to hear they've evolved. I didn't realize that, okay.
Erin Blankenship. I mean, if people use Kindle's, you can also do eBooks too, but I use it for the audiobooks.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, that's where I'm at, yeah. How about music?
Erin Blankenship. I love Dave Matthews Band.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Have you seen him?
Erin Blankenship. I know people.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, saw him at the Tampa Fairgrounds.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, yeah. Most of the concerts we went to were there too, because that's where we lived.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Great show, gosh, he's an awesome performer. You don't have the dancing Nancy on you anywhere. You have a--
Erin Blankenship. I do, do I have it on my car?
Robert DiLella Jr.. You have it on the car, yeah.
Erin Blankenship. I don't know, it was an accident last year. I can't remember if I got it on the new car or not. The fire dancer, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, the fire, yeah.
Erin Blankenship. I don't know if I have it on this car, but almost every car that I've had has had one.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, awesome.
Erin Blankenship. So no, we're big fans of Dave Matthews Band. I also like Red Clay Strays, the new favorite.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Who's that?
Erin Blankenship. Red Clay Strays.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What's that question, where is that?
Erin Blankenship. Country-ish.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Is it, all right, have to put on the list.
Erin Blankenship. If they're really, I don't know what they're categorized as. I'm not really normally a country lover, unless it's like 90s country, so I don't know.
Robert DiLella Jr.. All right, add them to the playlist. You're the first Dave Matthews guest.
Erin Blankenship. Oh yeah? I also like gospel music too, which is a weird mix all around, but,.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well yeah, that's good. You have a good taste of music if you can be all over the place.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, no, I do. I like old stuff too, stuff my parents used to listen to.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I get to add Dave to the playlist, that's great. Yeah. I do love Dave. Yeah, Dave, good stuff. What's something most people don't know about you, but should?
Erin Blankenship. But should? I don't know, I'm kind of like an open book. I really am, I don't I don't, I'm just an average person Trying to do the right thing in every part of my life. I don't think people should know this, but a lot of people don't know this, or at least people here. I used to play roller derby up until COVID.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Play real life roller. Roller derby's the one where you knock each other out of that thing, no?
Erin Blankenship. Well yeah, you're not supposed to use elbows, that's in the new, there's the roller derby that people think of from the 70s where it's kind of like WWE.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, that's what I know it as.
Erin Blankenship. But there are actual rules, you're not supposed to use anything below your upper arm down. So you're not supposed to elbow people, you're not supposed to use your hands, whoops.
Robert DiLella Jr.. But taking people's hands, but taking people out as part of the game.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, you wanna knock people, so basically there's five people on each team out on the track at once And you try to, and of those five, one is what they call a jammer, and that's the person that scores points. So you wanna try to block the jammer from getting through, and sometimes So obviously you either wanna hold them back or hit them off the track. So yes.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So that's real, it really is going on in the modern day.
Erin Blankenship. Yes, it's a real thing, I think four Myers has a team.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's awesome. Oh my gosh, there's another, I'll find out what they would be to see.
Erin Blankenship. I used to play bank track, like what you've probably seen old videos of. But right now, I don't think there's another, that bank track closed because of COVID, and I don't think they've started it back up again. But so most teams nowadays, because it's cheaper Than running out in arena to put up a track and play what's called flat track, and it's just like in a regular state.
Robert DiLella Jr.. It's not just big, steep turn.
Erin Blankenship. Right, but that's what I used to do.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Wow, so are they using blades now or?
Erin Blankenship. No quads.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Okay, so they're still around.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, definitely no blades.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Big difference. Harder, easier, what's the difference?
Erin Blankenship. Well When you play roller derby, you need to rely on, you don't rely on the stops that come, yes you do.
Robert DiLella Jr.. On the tip of the stops.
Erin Blankenship. Yeah, for turning around and things like that. But for blocking and things, you don't rely on that. So the quads really help you to kind of dig in and stop and slow down. But I don't know. The other difference is the boot style with a inline skate versus a quads skates very different. So you can have, most of those inline skates, like the things go up to here. Whereas the boot for a quad is like at your ankle and you have more mobility.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Any videos floating online with you? Yeah, really? Oh, Zach, you gotta pull this up. This is great.
Erin Blankenship. I don't remember when I looked like that, but yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, great, oh, we're gonna have to drop some of these.
Erin Blankenship. Because we used to do themed bouts where people would dress up as zombies or wear crazy outfits, so yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's so cool, oh great.
(Laughing)
Robert DiLella Jr.. See, I knew there was a hidden talent there that we needed to know about. Yeah, sure. That's great.
(Laughing)
Robert DiLella Jr.. All right, the finale of it all, the final question. What do you love about your life?
Erin Blankenship. I love my family, I love spending time with my kids. And I love what I do. I mean, really, I mean, obviously I go on vacations sometimes and things like that, but I go to work and I come home. So that is obviously the biggest parts of my life. I love telling stories, I love the people I work with. And, my family's my everything, so that's it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Beautiful, thank you so much.
Erin Blankenship. Thank you for having me, I'm so glad to do this.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Of course, yeah.
Erin Blankenship. I think it's great that you do this.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, yeah, it's awesome for me to get to meet who I'm surrounded by, because Naples is kind of blessed with some really great souls. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you.