September 13, 2013

WOW! I had another incredible day today! My dad and I arrived in Prague, Czech Republic yesterday late afternoon. We took the four and a half four train ride from Vienna to Prague. Upon arriving in Prague, my dad and I relaxed a bit and then walked all around the different squares in the city, trying to get our bearings of where everything is and trying to see and be apart of the famous old city of Prague. Prague is incredible! It is one of the only cities that did not get damaged and was and still basically is untouched from WWII. This means that all of the buildings and architecture are from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The city is spectacular and so old and beautiful.

Today was amazing! My dad and I woke up early, had breakfast, and walked over to the old Jewish quarter of Prague. This is where our tour met. We were going to Trezinstadt, the (at the time Czechoslovakian) Czech Republic concentration camp. Our tour guide was a ninety-two year old Auschwitz and Trezinstadt concentration camp survivor. He was in amazing shape, his brain was very sharp, he spoke great English, and had amazing stories to tell us. Although the tour through the prisoner camp was extremely depressing, especially after hearing his stories and learning about the real life there, it was so interesting and meaningful. One of the old buildings in the camp was converted to a museum which had all of the history of the camp and the people who survived there and the ones who didn’t survive. While we were walking through the museum, our tour guide told us his experiences from being in the concentration camps and how he was able to escape and survive. He said that he was a teacher for the young children in Auschwitz, and the children were valued more than the adults because they had more time to live, so the Nazi’s kept the teachers. He also told us that he met his fiancé at the time and later wife in the Trezinstadt camp, and their “honeymoon” was being transferred to Auschwitz. I cannot even image what life would have been like with all the TERRIBLE conditions of living and being in the concentration camps. After we walked through the whole museum, the tour continued to a secret (at the time) Danish synagogue that the Jews used to pray in. The sayings and prayers on the walls, in Hebrew, said things like “I will always remember you God, so don’t forget about me,” and other prayers of being liberated and keeping a positive outlook on the Jews lives. After seeing and being in this little synagogue, we went over to the Jewish cemetery, where the people who died in the camps went. It was  so sad to see because there were many tombstones that did not have a name on them; these people were unknown. Their only identity was that they were Jewish. The next stop on the tour was to see and get a visual of what the barracks looked like. There was a model of the women’s barrack set up. It was a small room, meant to normally sleep four or five people, but instead had fifty to sixty people living in it, with only one bathroom. Each “bed” was about two feet wide and there three levels of each bunk bed. The living quarters were almost the worst part about this concentration camp because so many people were crammed into such a small place and it was very overcrowded. Also, the heigene was not good and people were getting really sick and diseases were spreading and the people that died would just lay on the floors, they would not be moved because there was nowhere to put them eventually. The last stop on the tour of the Trezinstadt concentration camp was to an exhibit, in another museum, about all of the writers, musicians, artists, and live performers that were in the camp and their experiences. This was very interesting to see because the musicians wrote songs and operas about Hitler eventually stopping the war and losing his power and the Jews being freed. The artists drew pictures and paintings of their experiences in the camp and the daily life and realizations of how terrible the concentration camps were. These drawings were hidden and discovered later because the Germans and Nazis guarding the camp, did not want any outsiders to know what it was really like inside these concentration camps. The writers all wrote about their experiences in the Holocaust and labor camps. They also wrote poems and short stories about Hitler losing his power and all the Jews being liberated from the prison camps. Overall, the general theme of all of these literary and art works is about liberation.

The whole experience of being in Trezinstadt and learning about the daily lives was incredible. I knew previously about all the harsh conditions and poor life, but did not know about everything to this extreme. Also, just being in and walking around the area and buildings that used to once be a Holocaust concentration camp was very touching and moving. Additionally, hearing the stories and history from our tour guide gave the camp a very personal feeling. I was able to actually picture and imagine the terribleness that was happening at this time, in this place. Well I am off to bed now but I had a spectacular day, learned a lot, and hopefully tomorrow will be great too. Tomorrow my dad and I are touring the Prague C