~International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience

Well that sign on the walls of the “Small Fortress in Terezin was to be my only photo from the day, however it’s a devil to make a yellow text on blue sign photo legible. It’s not that I didn’t take any photos, I did. 26 to be precise, but I’m not happy with them. I’m a little unsettled about the whole Terezin experience, to be honest.

Some of it is left over feelings of unsettledness about Auschwitz this weekend, but some of it is completely different. In many ways, Terezin/Theresienstadt is completely different. I think this stems from the fact that Terezin was in use as a fortress/prison long before the Nazis. Unlike Oswiecim and other sites which might not be on world maps if not for WW II and the Holocaust, Terezin had a pre-existing place in Czech history. I think it’s safe to say though that the international interest stems from World War II when the small fortress became a Gestapo headquarters.

On a non-WW II basis, I was very intrigued. We were able to visit the cell in the small fortress where Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, was housed. One thing I have learned about the Czech Republic in my time here is how central the Czech Republic (in its various incarnations as Czechoslovakia, Bohemia and Moravia, etc.) has been to European history. Its role (along with battles here such as White Mountain) is certainly not something that comes up frequently in history classes in the US. Seeing the “Small Fortress” itself brought back memories of the Alamo, though I have no idea why.

Our tour actually started in the Ghetto Museum and then the Magdeburg Barracks. I admit, I’d mentally checked out of some of this. I found it heartwrenching to see the artwork, music, writings, etc of people who never made it out, especially children. I did buy the book relating to Hana’s Suitcase, but that was more for its Czech/Japanese tie than anything else. Both the Museum and Barracks were museums and not really reconstructions of any sort.

From there, the tour moved to the National Cemetery and Small Fortress. The National Cemetery is intriguing in that its allegedly one of the few places in the world where you can see a cross and Star of David side by side. When compared to Auschwitz/Birkenau, the reason Terezin bothered me was primarily superficial: there were food sales, souvenir shops and other current items within the grounds. To me, those belong outside a historic site. The cinema can be explained, it’s apparently where the SS guards would watch their movies, and the pool was built by the prisoners in preparation for the Red Cross visit in 1944, but there is no need for a souvenir shop and cafe within the grounds. Put them outside the gate, but they didn’t ask me. I’m sure there was some good reason, but the guide didn’t know.

So basically Terezin is a good place to learn about Czech history, and if you haven’t done anothr Holocaust site such as Auschwitz/Dachau (as a classmate said)/etc. it’s a good place to learn about the Holocaust.

I think where I’m still ‘unsettled’ re: Auschwitz (meaning the Auschwitz section of the camps not the whole compound) is the fact that apart from the famous sign, you could be anywhere. Even the barbed wire doesn’t ‘say’ Holocaust. The exhibits do, of course, however the exhibits aren’t that different from Holocaust exhibits elsewhere. That isn’t to say they’re not good, just that there’s no differentiation. Why do people go to Auschwitz? I personally think a big part of it is name association. In many cases, you say Holocaust and people think Auschwitz. I’d love to look further into the stats of who goes and why.

As for Terezin, the same question of ‘why’ applies. It doesn’t have the name association that Auschwitz does. It is however significantly closer to Prague than Auschwitz/Birkenau is to Krakow, which helps. I wonder how many people are aware of Terezin, or that it’s in the Czech Republic before coming to the area? Do they plan to go or are they enticed by the Prague tour companies ‘selling’ it that well? I’d definitely be interested in that.

I think I have my paper topic for Culture & Heritage Tourism.

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Perhaps it’s morbid, but to me that is Birkenau. It’s not about a museum attempting to explain what happened, it’s just the camp. The buildings, such as the quarantine bunks, are as they were. It’s more telling than trying to explain what happened, it allows the visitor to see it. Above all, however, it’s a cemetery. Not just the fields or ponds of ashes, there’s the sense that it’s all hallowed ground.

Perhaps Rob Francosi said it best:

The camp is 425 acres, a mile by a mile-and-a-half, but this information offers little guidance. The Allendale campus is more than twice its size. No, it is Birkenau’s horizontal emptiness that makes it seem so much larger than it actually is. Only a few of its nearly 300 barracks still stand on the windswept and barbed-wire-enclosed plain, a field dotted with chimneys surviving like burned tree trunks after a sweeping fire. A space once crammed with 100,000 prisoners now stands deserted, except for small groups of mostly silent tourists.

The silence was what I preferred. Since I headed to Birkenau when it was getting crowded at Auschwitz, I had Birkenau primarily to myself. There were a few tour groups, but I escaped them by walking counter-clockwise through the compound. There were still plenty of signs to follow, and I could think. I’m very glad that I didn’t book a tour as I would have felt rushed and I didn’t want anyone else’s interpretation. I wanted to take it in and try to put it together on my own.

At the entrance to the camp there’s a sign that tries to explain what happened and the fact that it’s listed with UNESCO, but is it necessary. Presumably anyone who’s made the effort to travel to the camps, since they’re not particularly on the way to anywhere, knows what happened. I’d be satisfied with a sign that said something along the lines of “Respect…Learn.” Since above all, that’s what visitors need to do. Learn, in whatever means works best for you. I suppose that’s why it’s good they have the preserved aspects of Birkenau and the ‘tell the story’ aspects of Auschwitz, each might appeal to a different visitor.

I saw many people walking around with guidebooks, but I preferred to go without it. I’d have been lost without my map of the camps, but I didn’t want to read, I wanted to observe.

One of the areas that spoke the loudest was Median Road/Selection Road. This was a right turn off the ‘main road’ (where the tracks are) and you walked in the footsteps of those who were ‘selected.’ Those who were headed straight to the crematoria. It’s a little, but it really made me think. The road really was that empty. And eerily quiet. From there the remains of the camp’s buildings were clear. In an apparent attempt to cover up/hide their actions, the Nazis tried to destroy most of the camps before liberation. It was on this road (and also at the sauna, which I didn’t get a good photo of) where I really heard Elie Wiesel’s Night. Perhaps heard is the wrong word as I hadn’t yet read the book, but when I read the book later while waiting for the train, I was back in that spot.

Making a left turn at the end of the road, I headed back to the crematoria. You reach a fork: to the left, a pond. To the right, the remains of Crematorium V. Of course a pond is never just a pond. It’s also a cemetery. If it’s not enough that they burned and gased these people, but then they threw their remains in a pond. However I was pleased that this pond was alive: tadpoles, fish and frogs. It made me happy that there was a sign of life there, however the flowers that grew near the rail lines bothered me. Tamara said it well when I spoke to her this morning, “It’s almost how dare the flowers grow.” In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two other examples of historical pilgrimages, people thought flowers wouldn’t grow, but they did. There it was a sign of new life, here it was just wrong, with one exception.

The exception was related to, but not at the site, of Crematorium V. The other flowers were at the site of Crematorium IV where the Sonderkommando revolted and destroyed it in October 1944. In that case, it seemed almost as if the flowers were saying, “Your death had a purpose.” As for how that was related to Crematorium V: the ‘tour guide’ there was a surviving Sonderkommando. Wow! It was one of the best tours I ever had the pleasure of eavesdropping on. Made me wish my German was better, but I got the gist of it. Some were really listening, but some clearly weren’t. That’s sad. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They courteously didn’t mind my eavesdropping.

From Crematorium V, I veered left past the sauna and remains of Crematorium IV to the international monument to the victims, one of the only things to be added to the camp. The monument was simple, a sculpture with that plaque translated into many languages. From there, you could look down the length of the rail to the Death House, said to be the emblem of Birkenau. I disagree, to me the rails say more. That’s how they all came.

My train left from Praha – Hlavni Nadrazi at about 8:30 PM. I didn’t pay attention when choosing my carriage/section and ended up in a smoking one, but I was too lazy to move. I dozed on and off and after being woken by passport control, I decided to sit up and see who my cabin mates were since I was hearing a mix of Japanese/French and Czech. The cabins are more or less bench seating with an arm rest between two sets of two seats and my ‘benchmate’ was a drunk Polish man who, according to the French woman, wasn’t making much sense in any of the languages he was ‘speaking’. The French woman was a backpacker traveling through Eastern/Central Europe and her benchmate was a young Polish guy who had been studying in the Czech Republic. None of us was sure why the train was stopped so we did what was normal in that situation and shared our ‘rations’ – a mix of a candy bar, British Smarties (so so good!) and 7 Days Bake Rolls (Bacon Flavored). Despite the approximately one hour delay, which some attributed to border delays, we make it to Krakow at just shy of 6 AM only half an hour late.

I had forgotten how ‘interesting’ Czech Rail service can be. 2nd class is about 10 classes below the local trains in Japan. They also don’t announce stops, which could have proven interesting. When we left the train at Krakow, he young Polish man shook my hand and said, “Enjoy Krakow-my home.” Very nice.

The delay was fine since I knew the first bus/train to Ozwiecim didn’t leave until 7. So I found the ladies’ room, learned that you had to pay so went to the ATM to take out Zlotkys — currency overload seriously — freshened up and went in search of the bus depot. It was a local shuttle bus that look about an hour and a half and he dropped is at the gate. Wasn’t hard to guess where the three non-Polish people were going.

***

Coming back, the bus was slightly larger but took almost two hours to get back due to the weather. I’d offer some great insight about the polish scenery but it was foggy and I was wet. Not agood combination. I didn’t understand why it took two hours to go 50-60 km until I saw the roads. Poland may have upgraded itself a lot in the last 15 years, but it’s still lacking in some areas. The area around the bus and train stations I found to be very depressing, dirty… I wasn’t impressed with Krakow but I also realise I didn’t see the tourist sections. I thought about it if I’d gotten back earlier but wanted to spend the day at the camps and the weather didn’t lend itself to staying longer.

I had about 5.5 hours to kill before the train so I went to the Galeria Krakowska. Nope, not an art gallery but the ubiquitous galleria. It really was rather like any mall, anywhere. Sephora, Aldo, Zara, MaxMara, Esprit…What enticed me was the food court. I didn’t want to think to eat, I just wanted food so I went with the staple of Subway. Sat in the food court and read “Night” (review here). I’d never read it before and was just…Wowed. I think the fact that when he mentioned locations in Birkenau I could think “I was just there…”. At about 9 I headed to the Albert to get some stuff for the train and headed back to the station.

Met a couple of people also waiting for the train but they had a sleeping car reservation. I ended up with my own cabin for most of the ride and I slept a good chunk of it. Czech border guard was amused that I was never stamped out by the Polish guards. He stamped just under my first ‘inbound’ Czech stamp from 2003.What struck me was that inbound at Ruzyne they use the standard EU stamp but by rail they still use the old one. Stamp/Visa Count:45. I really need to get the expansion pages before Australia because I am going to run out of room.

Got back to Prague this morning and was at the apartment by 7:45. Shower done and I need to do laundry. Look for pics and the write ups later today.