Wednesday, May 11, 2016

A Solemn Beginning

May 11, 2016

Greetings from Prague-

We may have had the nicest greeting from a pilot when we landed in Prague ever.  Actually, the pilot did his whole "Welcome to Prague.  The local time is yada yada" thing. The cool part, at least for Tim, was immediately after the pilot's welcome, music was played throughout the cabin.  The music was "The Moldou" from "Ma Vlast" (My Country) by the Czech composer Bedrich Smentana.  It is a wonderful piece of music that we performed with the Hope College Alumni Symphonette a few years ago. It certainly lifted our spirits after 9 hours  of flying and an hour and a half layover in Paris.

Prague is a picturesque city that we are really enjoying.  We have been riding a tram for public transportation and many of the streets are still cobblestone.  We must say, however, that the more you walk on the cobblestones or ride a tram/bus on them, the less quaint they become.

One of the reasons that we love to travel is to celebrate the best of humankind that we see.  From beautiful art work, to stunning cathedrals to monuments of brilliant engineering, it is all fantastic.  However, today we experienced the worse that humankind has to offer.  We visited the Terezin Concentration Camp, about a 45 minute bus ride outside of Prague.  As part of the Nazi's "Solution to the Jewish Problem", they took over the town of Terezin in 1941.  The 5000 inhabitants of Terezin were forced out of town to make way for the housing of Czech Jews.  Eventually Jews from all over Europe were brought to Terezin before being shipped to extermination camps; in the case of Terezin, mostly to Auschwitz and Treblinka.  By the end of the war 150,000 Jews had gone through Terezin.  86,000 were sent to die in other camps. The majority of the Jews in Terezin were housed in "the Ghetto" in the "large fortress", basically the town of Terezin.  There was also a prison called the "small fortress" where Jews who defied the Nazi's as well of prisoners of war, politicians, homosexuals, people with important connections, etc. were housed. The photo of a room with primitive bunk beds was a women's dorm in the "large Ghetto".  More then 60 women and their children would have been place in this room.  The prison cell is from the "small fortress" and would have also housed 60-90 prisoners.

In Terezin we also visited a museum that during the war was a home for boys age 10-15.  Once they turned 15, they moved into the barricks with the older men.  Unfortunately, all of the children were eventually sent to the extermination camps.  The museum had many interesting exhibits and the building itself was quite impressive for a school building.  There is more information we could give you but this blog posting has been depressing enough.

Our friends, the Dutkowski's and the Dominguez's join us tomorrow and we are sure the rest of our stay in Prague, as well as further blog postings, will be more uplifting.




3 comments:

Jilayne said...

What is Dad eating and why?!?!?!

Unknown said...

Pickled sausage and onions. It was delicious as was the Pilsner Urquell.

Unknown said...

Pickled sausage and onions. It was delicious as was the Pilsner Urquell.