f r e s h s t a r t

Thursday, July 27, 2006

 

A sobering history

One thing that really struck me about Prague was the sense of history. As with Innsbruck and Budapest, the Habsburgs (those Austro-Hungarian Empire folks) left their mark on the architecture in that city.

Most interesting though, was the Jewish quarter. We know of course, that Jews were confined to ghettoes in many places and were mistreated throughout history, but in Prague the physical evidence remains. Whiule many European synagogues were destroyed, Hitler wanted to preserve the Jewish quarter in Prauge as "a museum to an extinct race." Ironically, it is a museum today, but one about the faith and history of a living people. The Jewish cemetary was really interesting. Because of laws passed restricting where the Jewish population could have cemetaries, they had a very limited area to use. Graves were built on top of one another, up to twelve deep in some places. Old stones have pushed their way out of the ground, and are jumbled together with the newer ones.

My tour of that quarter of Prague inspried me to take a trip to Dachau later in the week.

The town of Dachau, Germany is fifteen minutes outside of Munich by train, and the former concentratiopn camp, now a memorial, is another ten by bus. It was the very first concentration camp run by the Nazis, and was one of the last to be liberated. It was a work camp, a training center for those who went on to run camps like Auschwitz, and near the end of the war, a dumping ground for prisoners from other camps.

I'm familiar with the history of Holocaust; I've been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and I've seen documentaries. Still, it was a powerful and eerie experience to visit the place where so many atrocities occured. To walk through the gate that says "Arbeit macht frei" (Work will make you free). To stand in the square where prisoners were counted. To see ther crematorium where their remains were disposed of. Not really an uplifting experience, and when I let my guard down I couldn't help but cry a little.

When the prisoners were counted, thye were forced to stand in a position that showed humility. Head bowed, feet together, hands at the sides, and never in your pockets. A statue outside the crematorium, a tribute to those that died there, depicts a man standing with his head raised, feet comfortably apart, and his hands in his coat pockets.

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