Another Weekend

Hey everybody!

I guess I'll start with the good news, since some of what I'm writing about isn't exactly cheerful.
My week went well, I'm surprised to find myself at Saturday night once again, with only one more weekend left in Prague. Indeed, I'll be home on the 1st, so only 14 more days, my trip is half over already!
I know several people are rather excited that I'll be home before too awfully long, and I can't say that I'm disappointed either. I'm not sure I'll be able to get used to sleeping without hearing the tram for a while, but I'm sure I'll get over it.

My classes are going well, I'm taking a field trip next weekend to attend a workshop with one of the best-known photographers in the Czech Republic. Everyone tells me this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I'm pretty excited!

I have another piece due in workshop soon, but it's still in it's early stages, so I'll share it when it's closer to being finished. The photo is of my workshop group, they're really pretty great people and I'm so lucky to be working with them!

Okay. If you're only looking for happy and cheery, it's best to stop here.

Are you sure you want to keep going?

I warned you.

To ease into things, yesterday was supposed to be the day I got a new apartment, Brandon was moving my things for me, but there were some problems with the complex (as in, them trying to hustle me because I'm young and out of town), so I'm out for at least another week, but I'm calling on Monday to have a very charming conversation with the property manager. It should be fun. Not so much for her, though.

That wasn't so bad, but it gets worse. Really, stop here if you're sensitive.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Today we visited Terezin. Terezin was a fortress and city set up by the government many years ago as a military base and prison for political prisoners and such. It was intended to be used in case of an attack by the Prussians, but that never became an issue.
During World War II, the Nazis used Terezin and a Jewish Ghetto, a city where the Jews were sent to live in cramped, terrible conditions while they waited to be sent to work camps or extermination camps.

The city became the Ghetto, and the fortress became the Nazi prison. We saw tiny cells, smaller than my apartment that would have housed 60 people, locations where the mass graves of 601 people were found. We stood next to the train tracks that were the last bit of free ground so many people saw before being shipped off to their deaths.

It was surreal to walk the same streets that thousands of innocent people walked, innocent people who were later sent to be murdered in Auschwitz and other such places. I did not take and photos, I didn't think it was appropriate. I know people with photos, and I'm sure there are some online, if you care to look for yourselves, but I had no wish to take anything but memories with me.

87,000 people were shuffled through the Terezin Ghetto during the war. Only 3,600 survived. Dozens of transports were sent out from Terezin to work camps and execution camps, most of 1,000 people or more, out of those 1,000, there were often only 9 survivors or 2 survivors, or none at all. I can't explain how it feels to stand in a place like that, to look around and try to comprehend living and dying like that, there aren't words.

Now, Terezin is a ghost town. Those who live there are among the lower classes, the economy in the area is failing quickly. The fortress is open as a museum, as are some of the buildings within the city. There is a museum that used to be a school within the Ghetto, it holds drawings of children who lived in the city, their thoughts of the outside world, their lost homes, their visions of concentration camps. As I said, I don't know quite how to describe this experience. Worthwhile, certainly, but disturbing as well.

As for the future, the Czech government is hoping to make Terezin into a university, build a school nearby and have the city be an extended campus, embrace the large, empty buildings and make them into something new and something hopeful. This kind of goal will require a lot of borrowed money from the European Union, and they hope to accomplish it within the next 3 years. I don't know how practical that is, but I would love to see it happen.

I had an interesting day, to say the least. I consider myself an incredibly lucky person living a wonderful life, so much more so than I would have thought yesterday, when I was just as sure that my life was great. Things like this really alter your perspective, allow you to see the world more clearly and better understand what really matters.

I'll post again soon, hopefully with something a bit brighter.
In the meantime, I love you all and I'll be home soon.

Love,
Emily