Berlin
6/29/11
Today we sat on benches in Tier Garden where Jews were not allowed to sit under the Nurenberg Laws. We ate kosher bagged lunches. I asked about the German coke and Jules Gutin said it had a lot of gas. Ha.
Gay Memorial: Each group's story is different. Just imagine that-showing love and affection was criminal.
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe(cement boxes): What do people passing by think they are looking at?
It's like the maze in Harry Potter IV, you lose yourself in it. It looks like a cemetery. You can't tell what's going on from the outside. Suddenly it feels like you don't know how to get out. Isolation, no writing, no names, lost identity.
[Resist War, Defend Peace.
Through science to justice.]
Only 2% of visitors at the Jewish Museum in Berlin are Jewish. Our tour guide's name is Karsten Kreiger, "The Christian Warrior." He is fantastic.
Humboldt Universitaet: Where they burn books, eventually they will burn people.
Why do Christian Germans serve as tour guides at these places?
"It happened, therefore it can happen again. This is the core of what we have to say." -Primo Levi
Our tour guide's grandfather was a "Nazi until the day he died" but still he loved his grandfather so much. This was extremely difficult for our tour guide to reconcile.
"Why war still? Why hunger still? Why a world still?" Oskar Rosenfeld
"For what and for whom do I carry on this whole pursuit of life, enduring, holding out--for what?"
"We would so love to live but they won't let us and we will die."
How should we react to the grandchildren of our enemies??
Grunevald Station: In 1944, it was written, "From this place, people were sent away." Well, yes. 56,000 Jews were sent to their deaths.
On the road: bathroom attendant at a rest stop in Germany speaks Hebrew
View of Dresden from the bus: long, red buildings, old castles, churches, beautiful
Praha, July 3rd, 2011
We met up with a group of Israeli girls who are here for a dance competition. They sang happy birthday to Jessica, and Zach took pictures with them. Then they danced for us, they were very cute.
"You cannot be passive about your Judaism; you cannot be passive about making the world a better place." --Shlomo Molcho
At Chevre Kadisha: Sickness represents a call to help one's fellow human beings. This is why medical intervention to heal the sick is not seen as a negation of God's will but as a religious duty.
My subgroup was invited to write down notes in my journal. Here is what they wrote:
"When we were at the Vansee Conference location, people were annoyed about how pretty it was and were saying things like, 'I wish it was ugly or rundown,' or, 'we should spit on it.' But would it really be better that way?
"How can we celebrate our birthdays if we know that so many people suffered on those very same days?"
"How did 15 people in a room at Vansee determine the fates of millions? How did they feel they had that right?"
Terezin, Czech Republic, 7/4/11:
Population 2011: 7,000
30,000-40,000 Jews lived here by force
Jews had their own currency system in the Ghetto. There was a propaganda movie made in the Ghetto--Holocaust denial during the Holocaust. The city was moated and walled.
Subconscious thought brought to the surface: in the scope of 6 million, 5 is nothing. 50 is little, 500 is not that bad.
Men and women were not allowed to live together or have intercourse.
I saw a bird in the town square picking at an apple core. That would have been a person.
Starvation in the ghettos: people became weak, susceptible to disease, 196 average deaths per day.
SO MUCH DECEPTION
Jews focused on education in the Ghetto. The intelligensia read to the kids and taught them in private.
Once the commander of Terezin found out all the Jews were destined to die anyway, he let them do what they wanted, cultural life flourished.
In the sleeping quarters: up to 400 people lived in this room, but we (50 of us) can barely fit into a third of it, standing. No showers, no bathrooms, no radios. Lice. Hanging from a bed post--a pale blue dress with a Jude star on it. They wore colors?
While they made their beds and got dressed in the morning, they also had to remove dead bodies.
Jews here had a secret newspaper. The children put on operas, there were classical music concerts, people wrote original songs, poems, plays. A lot of creations were brought with deportees to the camps because they didn't know what was going to happen.
Survivor of Terezin, Irene: This woman was touring the museum at the same time as us. Our tour guide begged and pleaded with her to come and talk to us. Once she started talking, she couldn't stop.
