i'm really glad we went to terezín and were there for awhile. it was the first concentration camp i've ever been to. it was interesting because it wasn't a "destination camp." people came through it more than they came to it. it theoretically functioned as a self-governing town. red cross workers came to see it twice and the nazis "beautified" it for them, so you wouldn't be able to tell that it was as bad as it really was. they even used the town in propaganda films. they really tricked some people into believing that the camps or ghettos weren't bad (or perhaps, people just wanted to believe that so it wasn't quite as hard as one would think to convince them).
one of the good things that happened there as a result of the need to "keep up appearances" was that the children still got to learn, at least some, and both child and adult artists made art there. this art has been preserved to keep telling the stories of what happened during the holocaust.
the town currently functions as a town, with buildings used back then either functioning as museums or ways to remember, or functioning as buildings for everyday use. this is a weird concept because i wonder how a person could live in a building knowing that it has a history as part of a concentration camp/ghetto. on all accounts it was very meaningful to be there and try to take everything in.
this is the entrance to a secret prayer room. pictures aren't allowed, so i don't have pictures from inside. but to be in that holy space was extremely powerful for me. to see the walls, painted with parts of psalms, to feel the texture of the walls and know just a bit of the power of the place.it was also good to go to the john lennon wall the next morning. it was uplifting, of course, but also meaningful in a deeper way. messages of hope, peace, and love from all over the world covered the wall in layer after layer to provide inspiration and motivation.
a picture from the john lennon wall. there were several "tags," but there were even more messages of love, hope, peace, and imagination. seeing all the layers makes me wonder how many people have written on it and how many have come and been inspired.
one of the things i kept coming back to is the importance of memory and remembering. stef said that lots of kids who were 5, 6, 7 when world war 2 ended in germany didn't know about the holocaust until they were adults because their parents didn't talk about it and they didn't learn about it in school. everybody just wanted to forget about it. the problem with forgetting is that it opens the way for the same thing to happen again. so, as alla bozarth-campbell tells us in "passover remembered," we remember and we "pass on the whole story."
the other thing i kept thinking about is the invisibility of those killed in the holocaust who were not jews. in terezín it was almost exclusively jews (or people classified as jews), but in concentration camps and the holocaust as a whole, there were roma, homosexuals, people with physical and mental disabilities, political prisoners, etc.
where are their stories? who remembers them? who is outraged with them about what happened? what are the implications of forgetting them? do we still have so much discrimination because did not cry out over their pain, suffering, torture, and death in the same way or to the same extent that we cry out over that of the jews who were tortured and killed? how can we live together and see god's reign here on earth, if we don't cry out against ALL injustices?
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