Dec 16
Family Day at the VOC Museum
Saturday, December 14, was Family Day at the Victims of Communism Museum. Children and adults alike were treated to holiday snacks, a live-reading of Catherine O’Connor’s Mia’s First Potato Chip, a museum scavenger hunt, and a hands-on look at the VOC Captive Nations Christmas Tree.
Mia’s First Potato Chip gently teaches children the contrast between liberty in America and the repression of rights in communist countries.
This children’s book is inspired by stories of survivors of communism. The author doesn’t name Mia’s country of origin, the date the story takes place, or how Mia and her mother arrived in America. This is because communism has used the same tools of oppression — hunger, propaganda, and denial of freedoms — around the world for over a century. Many victims of communism have fled to America and now enjoy the blessings of liberty. Mia represents them all.
Author Catherine O’Connor is not-only an accomplished writer, but an educator and mother of nine children — one of whom illustrated this recent publication.
The VOC Captive Nations Christmas Tree features ornaments from the Polish Embassy, the Hungarian Embassy, the Latvian Embassy, the Latvian American Association, the Moldovan Embassy, the Estonian Embassy, the Ukrainian Embassy, the American Ukrainian Activists, the Vietnamese Americans for Freedom, the Slovak Embassy, the Boat People SOS Organizations, the Lithuanian Embassy, the Lithuanian American Community, Keep Taiwan Free, the Belarusian American Association, the Czech Embassy, Save Ukraine, Romania, Poland, and the Delegation of the European Union to the United States. For full details about the Captive Nations Christmas Tree, explore here.
If you would like to contribute an ornament from your community to add to the tree’s display, please contact VOC’s Director of Coalitions, Milda Mataciunaite-Boyce, at milda.boyce@victimsofcommunism.org or (202) 864-2417.
