Prague

After a long but scenic drive, I arrived in Prague. Yesterday I went on a bus ride to see the lights of the city at night. The city is beautiful at night (especially along the river). I got a good night’s rest.

Today I went on a walking city tour, a lunch cruise on the main river, spent the entire afternoon in the traditionally Jewish section of the city, got a haircut, had a traditional Czech dinner, and wandered around the city. It was an action packed day; I am surprised I am still awake with all of the walking and eating I did today. Here are the highlights:

Walking tour and lunch cruise: I have found that these types of tours are helpful in learning about the less touristy spots of the city that are more relevant and specific than the typical guidebook. They also help to orientate me to the layout of the city and give important tidbits of information that I wouldn’t necessary pickup on my own (like where to be careful and watch for pickpockets or where to get the bet exchange rates). With that said, I am glad I took the tours. They both showed the heavy influence of art nevus in the city.

Jewish section of the city: Hitler, being the proud and crazed man that he was, thought that after the war hat he would create a museum to a race that no longer existed. As a result of this vision, Hitler decided to leave Prague’s Jewish section relatively untouched. During the war, Hitler ordered that all of the synagogues in the area be used as storage containing Jewish relics that were plundered in a process called Aryanization. What remains in Prague today is physical evidence of what was once a vibrant Jewish community; the only problem is that few Jews live in the community. The community only has one synangogue in service.

I purchased a ticket that allowed me to enter all of the buildings in the district. The synagogues have all been turned into museums that highlight different aspects of religious practice and culture. I found them to be interesting, but the highlight of the district for me was in the Pinkus Synagogue. The first and second floors of the building were filled with the names of Jewish individuals who perished in the Holocaust from Prague. The third floor has a permanent exhibit of drawings from the kids of the region from Terezin.

Terezin was a concentration camp in the Czech Republic that the majority of Czech Jews passed through en route to Auschwitz. In June of 1944, the Nazis allowed the Red Cross to enter this camp to see how “humanely” Jews were treated in the camps. This was done to appease the nations of the world that were beginning to question the purpose of the camps. Playgrounds were made; a school was built; the inmates were even given food and drink for a short period. Then, once filming was complete and the visitors moved on, almost all of the inmates were sent to their deaths.

In an attempt to maintain a normal life for their children, many Jewish parents allowed their children to participate in secret art classes while at the camp. The art classes allowed many children to explore their thoughts and feelings and escape into other worlds. Art supplies were difficult to get to maintain the classes, but the inmates managed with what they had.

The artwork was really touching. Photos are strictly prohibited inside the synagogues, but I couldn’t help myself. I waited for the guard to leave the room and I took two really quick pictures. I just couldn’t leave without taking a picture of the beautifully tragic artwork.






There was also a very heavy police presence in this area of the city. I’m not sure exactly why it was so heavy, but the presence was very noticeable.

Aryanization

One of the most visible landmarks in Vienna’s skyline is a giant ferris wheel in the of an amusement park. According to Jewish Vienna, when Emperor Joseph II transferred the royal hunting grounds to the public in 1776, the Prater became an important place for rest and relaxation as well as celebrations and sporting events (Feuerstein and Milchram 111). The Prater was filled with sensational attractions and was loved by the citizens of Vienna and tourists alike.

The park and the ferris wheel (the main attraction) was built around the turn of the century by Gabor Steiner. Steiner was a Jew. When the park opened in 1895, this was not a problem and for nearly forty years the people of Vienna came to the park to relax and enjoy themselves.

The invading Nazis believed that many of buildings and scenes that Steiner created were exotic and decadent (and therefore degenerate). The Nazis decided to destroy and rebuild the park according to their ideology. This process, along with any circumstances in which Nazis stole or significantly modified something owned or created by a Jew, was referred to as Aryanization. Under the concept of Aryanization, 60,000 Jewish homes in Vienna and 2.3 billion Reich mark in total assets were stolen during WWII (Feuerstein and Milchram 76). If an Austrian Jew was fortunate enough to have survived the Holocaust, he or she no longer had any property or assets.

As for Steiner, he was fortunate enough to emigrate to Hollywood in 1938. All that remains of the beautiful recreations of Venice and beautiful scenery that he created is a small side street in the park.

Austria

Before some of you get confused (mostly my friends and students), this is not the place with kangaroos. There were a few special sites that I had the opportunity to visit while in Vienna. I am going to spare you a boring history lesson, especially since my blog entries are getting progressively longer. The following are highlights of Vienna:

St. Stevens Church- Thank goodness for this church. Because of the high spires that protrude from the roof, I was able to use the location of the church as a way to get around Vienna. St. Steven’s Church is a beautiful building with many wonderful artifacts. One problem with the church is over the entrance. I couldn’t get a good picture of it, but one of the images over the entrance of the door depicts a Jew among other devils and evil symbols. St. Stevens is in the middle of an important shopping district of the city.

St. Steven's Church on PhotoPeach



Judenplatz- This square contains the Jewish Museum that I spent an entire afternoon wandering around reading and learning. First, even though Judenplatz was clearly marked on the map, if you are ever in Vienna and you are trying to go there, you will have tremendous difficulty finding it. After asking several locals were it was and how to get to it, I was finally able to find it. Once I found it, not only was the museum there, but so the memorial that I wrote about earlier.

Did you know that there are Spanish speaking Jews? This is a product of the Jews being kicked out of Spain in 1492 and being spread throughout Europe. The dialect of Spanish they speak is called Ladino and the Jews that originate from Spain are called Sephardim. It was interesting to read about what happened to the Jews once they left Spain and entered Europe. Each room in one of the exhibit halls focused on how countries welcomed Jews at one point, only to turn around and place restrictive covenants on their actions and religious practices.

The highlight of the museum was Schaudepot. This is the museum’s viewable storage area. In Auschwitz, there are several exhibits in which entire rooms are filled with the glasses, hair, shoes, brushes, and other items taken from people before they were killed. When I saw the roomful of artifacts that were in Jewish homes and places of worship before 1938, it had the same effect on me. It was overwhelming and I was by myself in the gallery. I snapped a quick picture (even though I wasn’t allowed) and left.



The guidebook that I purchased from the museum is also really helpful. It is like a dictionary of the Jewish faith. It will be a tremendous resource to use when I teach Night in the future.

Strauss and Mozart Concert- I went to a beautiful hall and had the opportunity to not only hear some wonderful classical music performed, but there was also cultural dancing as well. It was very entertaining. I had to go to a concert in Vienna; it is a must in a city known for such a rich musical history.

Memorials

Passing through Eastern Europe has afforded me the opportunity to see many memorials. Some memorials have been built to commemorate hard fought victories. Others have been dedicated to mighty and effective rulers. Some of the memorials have been built by ineffective rulers in hopes of creating a distorted new reality. One commonality that all memorials share is that they offer an insight into not only the group of individuals that are being memorialized, but also the creator of the memorial. The following are three memorials dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust from Vienna and Budapest that I found interesting not only for how they look and the meaning they convey, but also for the circumstances in which they were created.




Vienna- The dedication of this memorial in 1988 of a Jew scrubbing the ground created a firestorm in Vienna. It was originally intended to depict how Jews were forced to do humiliating tasks at the hands of Nazi oppressors. According to the text Jewish Vienna, in March of 1938, “thousands of Jews had been forced to scrub the pavements with brushes and even toothbrushes to the general amusement of the onlookers” (Feuerstein and Milchram 82)..Several members of Vienna’s Jewish community (among them Simon Wiestsenthal, the famous Nazi hunter) argued that the memorial itself was a further humiliation of the Jews and that a different memorial for Vienna would be much more appropriate.



Vienna- In response to what many viewed as a humiliating monument, this monument was commissioned and dedicated in 2000. Roughly 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed during the Holocaust. The picture that I took doesn’t do the memorial justice. If you look closely at the building, what from a distance appears to be bricks is actually concrete in the shape of books with the pages facing out. This was intended to demonstrate that the Jews who were killed were an educated people that were concerned about knowledge and learning. It also mourns the lose of knowledge (hence the books being turned inside out) that occurred when the Austrian Jews were murdered.

In addition to marking the lost of knowledge, the front of the memorial has doors without any knobs. The memorial also doesn’t have any windows. This was intended to symbolize that the typical Austrian Jew had little to no opportunity to escape the Nazi slaughter. The places where Vienna’s Jews were slaughtered are marked in the base of the monument.



Budapest- The memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Budapest is in the form of a tree. Each leaf on the tree has the name of a victim engraved on it. The rationale behind the memorial is that just like branches and leaves that are connected to the truck of the tree, Jews from Budapest that were killed by the Nazis all shared a commonality; they died because they were Jewish and dared to live normal lives.

Budapest

The drive from Krakow to Hungary was beautiful. The drive went through the Tatra Mountains. There were many little sites that were interesting and visually appealing:
-Skansen- wooden houses built without any nails. The community is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
-The castle where the original Dracula film was made.
-The Polish and Slovakian countryside was really beautiful.
-One quick fact: During World War II, the leader of Slovakia (who was also a Catholic priest) volunteered 50,000 Jews to be exterminated in order to attempt to stay on good terms with the Nazi government. The church has officially apologized for this priest’s actions.

General Information about Hungary

World War II came to Hungary in 1944. The nation was able to avoid much of the damage that befell man other European nations. With that said, 600,000 Jews still lost their lives in the year that Nazi’s occupied the country. In 1920, Hungarians sided with the Fascists. In 1948, the Communists took over. The people in jails just switched. The Communists that were in jail under the Fascists were freed when the Communists came to power after WWII.

Russian liberation was a major tragedy for Hungary. At the end of WWII, 200,000 Hungarian women were raped by Russian soldiers. The women would use makeup to make themselves appear less attractive to avoid getting raped.

After WWII, things were growing dire for many Hungarians. They were living in rough conditions and grew weary of Communist control. Being the revolutionaries that they are, a group of individuals went into Heroes Square (behind the art museum) and ripped down and began hammering a statue that was erected of Stalin. This revolution failed and a significant number of Hungarians were executed right after (the portraits outside the Tower of Terror Museum) Some 200,000 people fled Hungry in the failed 1956 revolution, thus creating large Hungarian communities outside of the country.

Apart from the general history of the nation that I was able to piece together from part of a tour and going throughout the Budapest, I had difficulty finding out specific information about WWII and the Holocaust and how Budapest was specifically affected. I did not know that museums were closed on Mondays in Europe. As a result, I was unable to go to two places that I was really looking forward to seeing (the Holocaust Museum and the Tower of Terror).Il also ended up getting separated from a tour group and spent three hours one afternoon trying to find my way back from the top of the mountain on the Buda side to my hotel across the river on the Pest side. Here are some important sites that I had the opportunity to visit:

Heroes’ Square: This is the heart of Budapest. The history of the nation through 1900can be told in terms of leadership through each one of the figures. The square also has a tragic past as it was the where the failed 1956 revolution started.

The Szechenyi Bath: After getting lost and walking about seven miles back to the hotel, I was tired and I just needed to relax. I thought the best solution was to go for a swim. This is the largest spa and pool complex in Europe. It was built in 1927 and was thought to have curative powers for ailments. As you will see from the pictures, I had a wonderful time. It felt like I was swimming in the pool of an elegant palace. European men do not cover up very well, many men like to wear skimpy bathing suits. This is a major tradition in Hungary.



Synagogue: There is a tremendous Holocaust Memorial (that I will write about in my next posting) and a cemetery where Holocaust victims were buried. The building was made to resemble a Catholic church.

Scenic Budapest(Danube River, Parliament, Matthias Church): There are so many beautiful sites; you’ll see the pictures when I can post them. The Parliament was exceptionally beautiful; there are 700 empty rooms that they don’t know what to do with there. Matthias Church was the place where I got lost.

Random fact: Hungarians has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Hungarians have the highest heart attack rate.

Krakow

What an amazing day and a half in Krakow! Have you ever had the feeling you’ve been inundated with so much information that it becomes difficult to take it all in? That is how I felt today. I have done so much and seen so much in the last 36 hours that it is hardly believable. Here is the sequence of events:

Market Square: After arriving in Krakow and passing through security (a NATO meeting was going on at my hotel with Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright), I needed to get some fresh air and have some time to reflect on my experience at Auschwitz. I decided to go for a walk. I went down a random street and kept walking for a few blocks. What I stumbled into was Market Square.

Market Square is absolutely beautiful. It is immense. I read that it is over 40,000 square meters; this made it the largest place in Europe in the Middle Ages. The pictures that I took of it at night do not do the space justice. It is prettier than Warsaw, and the buildings in Market Square are all original (dating back as far as 700 years). I stopped for a cold beverage and an ice cream cone and did some people watching.

Wawel Hill: I got lost walking back to the hotel. I was wondering around trying to find my way home. I figured that if I walked back to the Vistula River, I would find my way home. En route to the Vistula River, I found Wawel Hill. Wawel Hill was the home of many Polish kings and is the site of Polish state events. The funeral of the Polish president was recently held there (he died in a plane crash). It is filled with beautiful artwork and amazing views of the city. During WWII, the SS used the palace grounds as living quarters.

Kazimierz: This is the Jewish district in Krakow. Let me tell you that there are still Jews in Krakow and they have a vibrant and relevant place in Krakow’s cityscape. I ended up spending half day in the district learning about Jewish culture. I had the opportunity to join up with a walking tour of the area. The woman was slightly annoyed that I was following her group and had not purchased a ticket. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to purchase a ticket; they claimed that all of the tickets were sold out. So, instead of me paying to follow, I followed for free.

While walking, I got to see several of the buildings that were/are important parts of the district. I got to see a Jewish ritual bath, the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish hospital (which Jews formed because they were afraid that Christians might try to baptizes them if they were extreme ill or on their deathbed), and the Jewish school (which the tour director noted ended up assimilating Jews into Polish culture after three generations).

I also had two wonderful opportunities that made the day extremely special for me. I meet a young Jewish couple that were gracious enough to let me tag along with them to the Jewish district. I ended up eating a kosher meal of beans, meat, bread, and specially blessed sweet wine. They explained to me that they need to wash their hands in a ritual way before eating, pray before they eat, and not work from Friday night until Saturday night (including doing any sort of lifting outside the house).

While eating our dinner, I had the opportunity to meet another young Jewish lady who is currently studying in Krakow. Her grandparents had left the country during the Holocaust, her parents left for the States in the 1960’s. She filled me in on Jewish culture and practice. She gave me her contact information so that I can call/e-mail her in the future. This will be tremendously helpful in the future when I teach about the Holocaust.

Besides the meal, I had the opportunity to go into a synagogue and hear Jewish music preformed. The concert was a lot of fun. It was part of the a Jewish culture event that is held in Krakow every year. I also saw a group of Jews leave service and dance in the street.

Oscar Schindler’s factory: Emalia- What a tremendous museum! I thought that the museum was just going to focus on his efforts to save Jews, but it gives an overview of WWII and the Holocaust first before focusing on his efforts. Some of the artifacts are simply amazing. You need to see the movie if you have not done so, then you need to go to the museum. The highlight of the museum: going in his restored office. I could picture him in my mind seventy years ago sitting at the beautiful wood desk thinking of underhanded deals to keep his workforce alive.

Auschwitz

I learned more than I think I ever wanted to know about the concentration camp experience by visiting the Auschwitz complex. The concentration camps were built in Poland because of the close location to Germany. The Auschwitz camp consisted of three main camps and forty-nine sub camps. I went to Auschwitz I and Birkenau. I did not have the opportunity to go to Monowitz (the third camp). Auschwitz I was the processing center and where the SS lived (right beyond the barracks). Birkenau was the death machine; it had huge gas chambers and ovens that killed thousands of people daily. Before the end of the war, the Nazis destroyed all of the deth chambers in Birkenau. In fact, many of the buildings at Birkenau were destroyed. After the war, the Auschwitz complex was turned into a memorial.

Auschwitz was the first camp built in Poland. It first housed political prisoners. It wasn’t until 1942 that the crematoria were built. Six million poles died during WWII. At the time was broke out, 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland; only ten percent survived. Seeing the main gate to the camp with the inscription “Work Makes You Free” in German, the rooms full of prisoner’s personal belongings (hair, brushes, suitcases, artificial limbs, glasses, shoes, and bowls), the Death Wall, the barracks were prisoners slept, the cans left over from gas that was dropped into the gas chambers, the gallows, and the ovens was incredibly overwhelming. My heart aches that man has the capacity to so cruel to his fellow man.

With that said, there are stories of hope that come from Auschwitz. I had the opportunity to see where St. Maxamillian was detained and killed. His martyrdom allowed another individual to survive and raise a family. I think the best way to sum up what I took away from Auschwitz is as follows: “a small gesture can yield irreversible consequences; it can either save a life, or burn it”(copied from a plaque at the Oscar Schlinder factory).

In touring the camp, one is allowed to only take pictures outdoors. I did purchase a wonderful book that details all of the exhibits within the camp. Auschwitz is an amazing place that everyone should visit at one point in their lives. It will leave you with mixed emotions that are difficult to process and articulate I leave you with some pictures from the largest cemetary in the world.

Auschwitz (part 1) on PhotoPeach



Auschwitz (part 2) on PhotoPeach