Cooperative Living June 2015 - 33

mother was Ukrainian and his father was
Polish. The two had met during the war as
partisans.
As Keisch leads me around the museum,
he pauses for a moment in front of a picture
of himself as a child with his brother and
parents in the DP camp. " All of my aunts,
uncles, cousins, and grandparents were
killed in World War II, " he says. " And my
mother died four years after I was born. "
Keisch came to the United States with
his father and brother in 1950.
There is no bitterness in Keisch, however,
despite the loss of so much of his family
in the war. Quite the contrary, he is jovial
and quick to crack jokes, particularly with
the museum's Austrian intern, who is part of
a countrywide program whereby Austrian
students can elect, instead of mandatory
military service, to volunteer for the
Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service. These
young people serve at Holocaust memorial
institutions in 23 countries, part of a form
of restitution as well as education for
Austria's role in the Holocaust.
The most moving part of the museum
for me, however, is not the photographs and
stories of individual survivors but the güterwagon
that stands outside the museum's
front doors. An original rail car that once
carried 100 to 120 people at a time, without
food or water for days, to concentration
camps in the heart of Nazi-occupied territory,
the dank, dark car gives me pause, as I
imagine the abject misery of the people it
once carried, more often than not, to eventual
death.
BRINGING BACK OLD MANCHESTER
Directly across the river, rebirth is
happening, however, in Richmond's Old
Manchester neighborhood. While there is
still some sense of a crumbling community
here in this once largely industrial sector
of the city - empty storefronts and broken-up
sidewalks - local residents and
business owners, with support from the
city, have been working to revitalize the
neighborhood and turn it into a safe,
pedestrian-friendly community, where
people can shop, walk, and live while still
having right-across-the-river access to
downtown Richmond via Route 360.
Among the businesses that stand to
benefit from the revitalization of
Manchester is Legend Brewing Company,
just a few blocks off Route 360, on 7th
Street. Opened more than two decades ago,
it is the oldest craft brewery in Richmond,
and its on-site pub and restaurant offer
expansive views of the downtown skyline.
June 2015/www.co-opliving.com
Rhys Van Lienden (below) is
marketing and public relations
director of the Virginia
Holocaust Museum. The
güterwagon (right) that
stands outside the museum's
front doors is an original
rail car that once carried
100 to 120 people at a
time, without food or water
for days, to concentration
camps in the heart of Nazioccupied
territory. Below
right is a view of the interior
of the rail car.
Downtown Richmond's northside
skyline stretches out across the
horizon in the view from Legend
Brewing Company, which resides on
the south side of the James River.
The oldest operating microbrewery
in Virginia, Legend Brewing
Company (left) opened more than
two decades ago.
31
Cooperative Living June 2015

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