around here: ghosts of the Czech past

June 1, 2011

I didn't really know where this picture would fit, but then I decided that it's really a part of Czech culture. Unlike in the States, someone has died on pretty much every corner. Every building has a history and every square has a story. I might be wrong, but I would say that Czechs are mostly desensitized to this fact because they pass it every day. Whereas for us, it's like 'Oh shit, I'm eating ice cream in a town where 150,000 prisoners were held during the Holocaust and 35,000 of them died because of poor hygienic conditions...and I'm eating an ice cream cone' -- it's kind of an overwhelming experience. An experience, I think, that doesn't really equate to anything else I've ever felt before. 

It's also interesting that after awhile all the deaths seem to blend together and you're left with a sense of emptiness, and I guess desensitization. It's sad, but what else can you do. Being only one person, it's hard to grieve again for hundreds of thousands of lives lost at every turn -- and honestly, it can really wear you down. I'm too empathetic to focus on death so much, but I guess in a way it's more honoring the lives of those who've passed. 

We visited Terezin today, a holding camp/concentration camp/insta-depression zone, an hour or so outside of Prague. Being there, standing in the same spots where prisoners once stood, where dying children once painted, it's weird. It's hard for me to wrap my head around. I can't really swallow mass genocide, even though I know it happened/happens, and there's not really anything I can do about it. When I compare it to something like 9/11, which I know is completely incomparable, but nonetheless relatable. At first you have a massacre, but then you have heroism within minutes because once the passengers on the Pennsylvania plane knew about it, they took the enemy down. So why didn't the 78,000 prisoners within Terezin revolt? I mean, there were 78,000 of them in a city built for 5,000! They could have had a coup de'etat for pete's sake. I just don't understand, but then again I wasn't there, and really don't know enough about the situation to fully develop that opinion, so I'll stop with the bogus theories. I was just standing there listening to our tour guide, a survivor, and really pushing for an uprising of the Jews to save so many lives, even knowing full well that it didn't happen.

Anyways, I took this picture because I thought it got across the creepiness that was flowing through my veins. It smelled like death, not really like rotting corpse or anything, just it was in the air, and you could feel it. Everywhere we went. I also thought this photo kind of honored what went on there. I liked the menorah, it gave it more meaning. It was also a pretty scary looking menorah, so it fit.