Journal Entries for Terezín and Old Jewish Cemetary

While we were in Terezín, the most amazing things I saw were the peices of artwork that came out of such a horrific situation. I copied down several of the drawings that I saw to the best of my ability. There were so many different styles and medias used and most of them had to be done in secret on stolen away materials.

The Rim Rim Rim lettering is from a boys magazine that was published in Terezín. There were dorms for young boys and girls and it looked like every house had their own little magazine. The mushroom is propaganda from a children's book called "Poisonous Mushrooms" intended for aryan children to instill anti-semitism from an early age. To the right of that drawing is a drawing from a photograph of Jewish men from Berlin standing in line at the Palestine and Orient travel agency to apply for emigration. The little circles to the right of that are from the Nuremberg laws which had standards to identify Jews and 1st and 2nd level part Jews called Mischlinge or mixed blood.
This is from our visit to the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague that we visited yesterday morning. The cemetery is so old that there are several different layers of bodies buried there because they ran out of room repeatedly for the bodies. Because of this, tombstones are all cluttered and leaning up against each other and you will see tombstones from several different centuries right next to each other. Each time they made a new layer for more bodies, they would bring in a bunch of dirt and have to most the old tombstones up so you have a huge collection of about 12,000 of them all together.

Terezín

Today was the most serious day we have had so far considering that we took a trip to Terezín for the day. During WWII, Terezín was used as a holding village for Jews, over 150,000 passing through there in total. The Nazis used it as a model village to fool the Red Cross in 1944 into believing that they were treating the Jews well by dressing them in normal clothes, ordering them to say certain things, performing the children's Opera Brundibar, and setting up a soccer game between the detainees. Terezín was not the normal concentration camp, there were not gas chambers there or mass killings in the area, but it was a transport center and around 33,000 people died while in the camp and less than 200 children survived.

Here is a Star of David we saw from a synagogue that was worshiped in illegally in a cellar during WWII. They had paintings and text all over the walls that was still visible. I was so inspired by the dedication and desire these people must have had to continue worship in such a dangerous situation.

This was inside the small fortress. There are two fortresses and they were built during the rule of the Hapsburgs. It was perfect for the Nazis because it had been built as a fortress and a prison so they were protected and already had the military layout that they needed.
Here is the fortress from the road (you can see beavers in the river). It was built sucken down so that it was pretty much invisible except for the grass on top, until you got right up to it.
Here is the entrance to the small Fortress, the black and white seemed so out of place and terrified me.
You may have seen these words before, made famous by the entrance to Auschwitz. It means "Work makes free" Can you say 1984?

What made this day so amazing was the artwork and literature and poetry that we got to see from the interned. There were thousands of documents saved and so many children's drawings. Because of this, the day really wasn't that much of a downer, of course it had it's moments, but to see how people, and especially children, can make such beautiful art out of such a horrifying experience really gave me hope for humanity.

To make this visit even more special, next week we get to meet Ivan Klíma, an internationally famous author who was a child and survivor of Terezín. During our visit to the museum today we also met another survivor, a 90 year old man named Pavel who gives tours now and tells his stories. He was one of the sweetest people I have ever met and wished us all the best. I asked him how it was for him to return here and he responded by saying, "It is my moral duty. Don't you think so?"

Day Trip to Krivoklat Castle

Yesterday we were put into groups of three and told to go on day trips to interesting places around Prague. My group decided to go to Krivolklat Castle, a little over an hour by train from Prague, complete with a torture chamber, tower, and unbeknownst to us, an archery. Our train left at 7 am and riding into the countryside so early in the morning was amazing. There is something called the Chata culture here which is the country life. Every weekend there is an exodus of Prague and people travel out to the countryside where they all have their own little cottages called Chatas. These are usually pretty bare and simple with gardens and streams to go fishing and forests to pick mushrooms in or hike around in. Czech people are very fond of outdoor activities but until yesterday I didn't realize the extent of this culture. It was so interesting to see the little cabins lining the rivers or forests and then we got to Krivoklat which was a tiny little town with a huge castle up on the top of the hill. We got a full on tour, and although it was in Czech, we were able to follow along with an English handout.

This is a village we passed on the train. There were a countless number of these perfect little towns and they were surrounded by mustard fields and rivers and forests with a castle here and there. It looked like a fairytale.

Krivoklat Castle and the big tower.
Here I am with Robin Hood, who we met right when we got into the castle. After trying out these weapons I will definitively cross off marksman from my employment possibilities, I was terrible.

We were excited to get off the train and to the castle, can you tell! We were also a little delirious from waking up before 6 am.

When we got back to Prague last night we did a quick grocery store run and then headed to Choco Café where I have thick sipping chocolate with fresh raspberries and strawberries and whipped cream. Perfect ending to a perfect day.

Graffiti

The other day we went out on a two hour walking tour to do an "exegesis of Place" with Professor Vaclav Cílek, one of the most respected professors in Prague. He studies geology and philosophy and connects them by studying the history of places and architecture.

One of the most interesting parts of the walk was the TV Tower which is one of the highest buildings in Prague and also one of the most hated. It was made by the communists to block out the European and American radio stations at it does not fit in with the rest of the beautiful city. As a way of covering up such a horrific building, the country hired the famous Czech sculptor, Cerny, to make the building more "humanic". His interpretation of this was to put enormous babies crawling all over the building with giant tv screens as faces. Don't ask me how this makes the building more inviting, I am extremely creeped out by the idea of huge robotic babies crawling around a tower but they made the sculptures and put them on the tower. To make it worse, the tower is actually built directly on top of a Jewish cemetery, many headstones can still be seen from one side and the old mortuary is now used as a pre-school. Just when I think Prague can't get any more strange, something like this pops up and amazes me. Cílek explained that the Czechs have a way of dealing with things through sarcasm and dark humor and the baby sculptures were really the only way they saw to change such a terrible and disrespectful building into a mockery and make their peace with it.

Cílek took us around a touristless part of Prague and we were quickly aware of all the graffiti around us. He explained the importance of the graffiti and how it has gone from a subculture to a mainstream part of the Czech culture. He even said that some neighborhoods appreciate the graffiti that is done well because it covers up the ugly old cement communist buildings.

Kutna Hora and Easter

Happy Easter everyone! In the Czech Republic, Easter is celebrated on the Monday of the holiday more so than the Sunday when the church services are held. We woke up to a crowd of hundreds at the cathedral outside of our bedroom window and saw the priest blessing everyone with holy water. I'm getting ahead of myself!

On Saturday we left on the train for an hour ride to Kutna Hora, a cute little town in the countryside. There was an enormous fair going on and some of us nearly had mental breakdowns due to the mental overload but once we got through the crowds we were able to visit the Bone Church and St. Barbara's Cathedral. The Bone Church was amazing: years ago, the church had to deal with the fact that they had 40,000 bodies that were too much for the cemetaries so they decided to create decorations and structures out of the bones in the church. It was a cool experience to sit in the cold cement dungeon like church and see the beautiful way they arranged the bones and how creative they must have been.

After that church, we walked for an hour about to the opposite side of the city where we got a delicious meal and were refreshed to continue on to find St. Barbara's Cathedral. After another hour or so of walking in circles we found it and it was so worth it. What a beautiful church, completely unlike anything else I had ever seen.

A gelato and coffee later, we were back on the train and to Prague where we stayed in and caught up on some sleep.

The view from the church was amazing! We could see the whole town and the countryside.

On Easter Sunday, several of us went out to breakfast and then to the Lennon Wall (see previous blog posts if you don't know what this is) to make our own mark. I brought down my laptop and blasted the Beatles the whole time, I'm pretty sure we got through 5 albums, and we just sat on the sidewalk drawing and making potato prints and then gluing our stuff up onto the wall with spray glue. So many people stopped and took pictures or talked to us, it was a great way to meet people. After two or three hours of that we looked back at the images we had posted and people had already signed them and added their own quotes to them which was pretty awesome to see.

That night, we had a potluck dinner and each room brought a dish. We brought pesto pasta and we are happy to have tons of leftovers in our fridge today!

I am doing great and the work is hard but joyful so I am getting a lot out of this experience. I'm learning to push myself and look at things differently which is a great new approach to art and writing for me. I'll include more of my work soon once I get some stuff finished!

The Lennon Wall at Night

Tonight Ally and Lauren and I decided it would be fun to walk down to the Lennon Wall from our hostel, just 10 minutes away at most. Starting in '88, Prague students began to write grievances and words of rebellion against the communist Russian rule on the wall. Since then, the wall has continued to be painted on, mostly with lyrics from the Beatles and encouraging notes of Peace and Love. I tried to take as many pictures as possible but had to use a flash since it was 10:30 p.m. when we got there. I can't wait for Sunday when I will be going down there on my own to make a mark and look more closely at the messages there in person.

Getting Comfortable in Prague

It is hard to believe but a week and a half has already gone by and we have done so much. We enjoyed the Prague Writers' Festival this week, getting to hear readings from writers like Don Delillo and Junot Diaz. Diaz was by far one of the most inspirational speakers I have ever heard, we got to meet him personally and he signed my journal. He was so down to earth and radical which I loved, it made me think that there is still hope for people with beliefs like Kurtis and I!

We have spent a lot of time in the studios this week. So far we created a 4 foot square mixed media drawing/painting based on Jaroslav Seifert's poem shirt and now we are in the process of doing one on our own based off of our own work. The project we are currently in the middle of is inspired by Franz Kafka's story "Metamorphosis" and we are all painting a collaged image of bugs and autobiographical information mixed together.

We went on a 4 hour walking architectural tour on Tuesday with our local architect tour guide, Kristof. It was a great way to see the city and he pointed out all the best gelato spots and pubs on the way.

I have had a surprising amount of time to myself to explore the city, considering how busy they are keeping us and how much work we are doing. I have been drawing everywhere I go, my little moleskine is filling up quickly!

Yesterday I walked around the city for four hours going to the market drawn above to buy gelato, strawberries, and zucchini and then I saw the Bridge Band that I drew below.

As I was drawing them the main old man of the band kept singing to me and laughing and even pointing! They were such characters and after I was done drawing and they finished their song they called me over and asked where I was from and asked to look at my drawing. They all laughed and pointed at each other in my drawing, I think they approved.
Here is one of the bakery stands that you can find in the main squares. They are full of freshly baked goods, some that they even bake there as you can see by the brick oven in the background.
Here is Old Town Square with all of the Easter vendors out selling their trinkets. This was a picture from our architectural tour and we got treats here as we walked through to refuel.
Lastly, the four senior girl roommates before we went out dancing in a way too busy club with way too many grabby Italians. I may never go to Italy after that! (we still had fun though)