The Tears Begin

 It was a concept I truly couldn’t wrap my mind around.  Europeans didn’t shower, they bathed.  So, what was I supposed to do for a full two weeks?  Sit in my own dirt while I bathed?  I didn’t like baths as a kid and I was certain that I wouldn’t like them as a seventeen-year-old.  Here I was, sitting on the  bathroom floor of a five-star hotel in the beautiful city of Prague.  It was the second day of our journey and I’ll admit  I was being a drama queen, but in my defense, the jet lag was hitting me hard.

 Once I was able to conquer the bathtub, I also had to conquer the fact that I wouldn’t be eating pancakes and waffles for breakfast.  Instead, we were served some delicious meat.  However, this time it wasn’t duck which was a plus.  Europeans, in fact, are very big on deli meat for breakfast with cheese, cucumbers and tomatoes on toast.  Before I could even  enjoy breakfast, our bus driver George had arrived and the second day of our journey had begun.

 Our first stop took us to Terezin, which was a concentration camp in Prague. This was the first camp on our journey.  Martina kindly reminded us that due to the fact that the Red Cross visited often to inspect, the camp was tidied up and wasn't nearly comparable to camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka, which we would see later on our trip. The famous sign, “Arbeit Macht Frei”, in simpler terms, “works set you free” hung over the camp entrance.  The thing was that I had seen that sign in so many history textbooks, but now I was seeing it in person.  It was an eery feeling.  While walking through the camp, a sense of somberness and gloom pervades.  My mind was pondering so many questions.  How could people live like this?  What was it like for them?  My classmates and I were pretty silent; we could only observe and listen to our tour guide.  There were no words to speak.

 In the afternoon, we traveled to a little town called Lidice.  Hitler ordered that the town be completely destroyed along with everyone in it.  He believed that someone in this town had assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Nazi official.  The reality was that no one in that town was responsible for his murder.  Yet, the women and children were shipped off to concentration camps and the men were killed by firing squad.  The town was then burned to the ground. The message that the Nazis conveyed was loud and clear, no matter what religion or ethnicity  you are, we will take you down.  The memorial that is there today is a large, absolutely beautiful park, with vast  sculptures and some ruins from the original churches and houses that once stood.  The most astounding part was that while we were walking through the park, people were riding bikes and one couple was having a little picnic.  These people were going through life like nothing ever happened there, as if  hundreds of innocent men, women and children didn’t lose their lives there. As we finished up our tour, we ended up in front of the Eighty Two Children sculpture. The sculpture is dedicated to not only the children lost in Lidice but also all that were lost in World War II. Teddy bears, as well as presents, lay in front of the children and for the first time in the whole trip tears started to form.

 The  ride was silent back to the hotel.  Many sniffles filled the bus.  What I kept thinking was, "For what purpose would anyone want to kill millions and millions of innocent people"?  Those children had so much to live for in the town of Lidice.  Our tour guide Martina was right, this journey we were on was one heck of an emotional experience and sometimes truly hard to comprehend. 




Photos Taken that day:






These Photos were taken by my friend Hannah D'Amico