Meine Klein Welt

Terezin

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TerezinJust north of Prague is Terezin, or Terezinstadt as it was called by the Germans during WWII. The residents of Terezin were forced to move out of their homes so that the Nazis could set up a Jewish Ghetto. They also made a prison out of a small fortress nearby.

This particular concentration camp holds some special meaning for my family since some members of my family were sent there during the Holocaust. My Great Uncle Dolphie used to tell us stories of life in Czechoslovakia before the war and how he escaped and how he tried to convince his family to come with him.

This is the second concentration camp I've been to(the other being Mauthausen in Austria) and I think I really just don't like concentration camps. Not that anybody really likes concentration camps. I mean I don't like visiting them. It's not that I find them uninteresting, it's that I hate thinking about what happened there.

Whenever I start thinking about the atrocities that happened during the Holocaust I find myself caught between disbelief and horror. It is one thing for the Nazis to believe the things they did, but it is quite another thing to act on them so cruely and mercilessly. The kind of hatred exhibited seems unreal, and the more I think about it, the more I think that this unbelievable thing actually happened, the more I want to fall on my knees and weep.

I spend my time thinking about what actually happened, the abuse and neglect, the utter disregard for the sanctity of human life until my eyes well up with tears and I can barely hold my composure. Then I have to stop thinking about it or I really will lose it.

All the time I wonder how the other people do not see or feel the things I do, and how they walk around as if they were looking at an art exhibit at a museum. Do they not sense the evil there? Is it not permanently embedded in the buildings and rooms, and cloak the whole camp with its residue? I can imagine the screams, the weeping, the despair. The injustice. If these walls could speak…

Stop looking at me, Swan

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Salzberg 037.jpgWhile my parents were here I took them down to Hallstatt, a small, salt mining village nestled into the side of an Alpine mountain and overlooking a lake surrounded by more mountains. It really is breathtaking.

So my mom finds these swans that swim up to us and almost fills up the camera with pictures of them, even getting me to pose with them once. You'd think she'd never seen a swan before. I think they were expecting food, but all I had was a postcard. So I offer my postcard to the swan, but he just hissed at me. The nerve!

Computer of Mass Destruction

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boomMy parents got in yesterday and among the goodies they brought me from the good old USA is my new laptop. Thumbing through the user manual I came across this statement:

…[This computer] may not be sold, leased or otherwise transferred to, or utilized by an end-user engaged in activities realted to weapons of mass destruction, including without limitation, activities related to the design, development, production or use of nuclear weapons, materials, or facilities, missiles or the supoort of missile project, and chemical or biological weapons.

Guess I'd better keep my day job.

Three Thoughts from Sick Bed Past

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soccerHere’s some random thoughts from last week when I was sick:

      • Wednesday night I got to watch the US women’s soccer team play Germany in the final of the Algarve Cup. The US dominated the game, but couldn’t put a ball in the net, and ended up losing 4-3 in a shootout. It reminded me of the time when me and some friends decided to become women’s soccer fans for the 1999 Women’s World Cup. A few of us painted our faces for the final (USA vs. China), dug out our American flags, and walked through west philly to someone’s house who had a big screen tv. I remember Bill Clinton being interviewed during half-time talking about how great the world cup is for women’s sports and how it was great that 1 billion Chinese people were watching the event unfold. We laughed about that for a long time. The US won on a penalty kick by Brandi Chastain who proceeded to tear off her jersey and launch a heated debate and commercial campaign about sports bras.
      • While I was sick, I took to walking around the apartment wearing my green and gray plaid Martha Stewart fleece blanket like a cape. My roommate said I looked like a monk, and then I started wearing it over my head as well. Say what you will about Martha Stewart, but the woman can make a nice fleece blanket. Or at least some Indonesian kids in sweatshop can make a nice fleece blanket with her name on it.
      • March Madness on Demand is the greatest thing ever. I got to watch my beloved Penn Quakers take on the mighty Texas Longhorns Friday morning. It actually turned out to be a really good game, as Penn clamped down hard on defense. Maybe you didn’t notice, but Penn point guard Ibrahim Jaaber hit a nice bank 3 pointer towards the end of the game. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, but you should know that the bank 3 was perfected at Penn by a group of intramural basketball players known as WonderBread. WonderBread was quite possibly the greatest intramural basketball team…ever. By our second season we hit at least one bank 3 per game. One time we even hit four in the same game. Four bank 3’s! It was amazing. It’s great to see that the legacy of the bank 3 lives on at Penn.

Saying Goodbye

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American biscuitFor the second time in the span of a month I’ve had to say goodbye to a good friend of mine. At least this time I know she’s coming back, albeit in September. Jo does freelance interpreting at the IAEA, but is without work until the fall. Though she is fluent in four languages, we often have trouble reconciling the differences between American and British English. For instance, last night I spent a considerable amount of time trying to explain the difference between an American biscuit (pictured) and a British one, and apparently “pudding” means “dessert” in British. Who knew?

Olivia, who left a month ago, has no set plans to return, and is now stateside unless she is still traipsing around Scotland. I suppose I could begin to use this large black bag she left in my room as leverage. Hmmm… What if I decide to keep one item from her bag for every week she’s gone?

At any rate all this leaving makes me sad. And it makes me think about the end of the school year when I’m going to have to say goodbye to more friends. I grew up as a Navy brat so all these goodbyes aren’t really a new concept, but they never get easier. Not for me anyway. Maybe that’s because I never had a lot of friends growing up. Heck, even over here I barely had a social life my first two years. I remember my first year when my roommate was gone over breaks, I would sometimes go two or three days without talking to anyone. When I finally ventured out of my apartment, I found I stumbled over my words as though I had forgotten how to speak. And I had, I guess.

So I tend not to take my friends for granted. I like my friends to know they are appreciated, and sometimes I probably place too much focus on maintaining my friendships. So when they go, it saddens me all the more. Though, at the same time, it makes me thankful for the friendships that God has blessed me with and motivates me to pray for those friends that I am now separated from.