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Former U.S. Senator and Defense Secretary William Cohen was inside the Holocaust Memorial Museum during Wednesday's shootout and has unique insight into the hatred behind the afternoon's gunfire.

"I heard about four or five shots ring out in very quick succession and I knew they were gunshots and we ducked,' said Cohen.

Cohen hit the ground and fled to safety. His wife, Janet Langhart Cohen, was en route to the museum at the time of the shooting.

Langhart Cohen says she wrote "Anne and Emmett" to expose and hopefully eradicate hatred. The play is a narrative about an imaginary conversation between teenagers Anne Frank and Emmett Till.

Frank died during the Holocaust while Till was lynched for flirting with a white woman.