On the afternoon of June 10 , 2009 , Cohen was present at the U.S. Holocaust Museum , waiting for his wife Janet Langhart , for the world premiere of her one-act play , '' Anne and Emmett '' . The play imagines a conversation between Anne Frank and Emmett Till . While Cohen waited , an elderly man with a long gun attacked the facility , fatally shooting a security guard before being wounded himself by the other guards . Cohen and Langhart were not injured , and appeared on CNN that afternoon to tell what they had seen and respond to the shooter 's racist beliefs . The man was identified as James W. von Brunn , 88 , of Annapolis , a longtime " hard-core " supremacist whose Internet writings contain extensive criticism against Jews and African Americans . Langhart 's play had been promoted in '' The Washington Post '' the week before , and was being presented in honor of the eightieth anniversary of Anne Frank 's birth
shooting
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting
William Cohen