Prague is such a beautiful city. I was delightfully surprised by how much I enjoyed it, particularly the rich history and stunning architecture. Nothing was scheduled on our third day there, so we were free to explore the city on our own. It was so lovely to have a leisurely morning without any places we needed to be or things to accomplish - I hadn't really realized how exhausted I was until I had a chance to slow down and take it easy.
The free morning started off at the Jewish Quarter near Old Town. The few of us that went decided to get the all-inclusive ticket so we could see everything that was open to the public in the Quarter. The entrance to the area leads into a synagogue that now serves as a memorial for Czechoslovakian victims of the Holocaust. Wall upon wall and room after room were filled with completely with names of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish people from Czechoslovakia alone who were murdered in the during reign of the Third Reich. It was such a sobering experience to see all the names listed one after another and imagine the person that each name represented. Another room in the synagogue displayed a collection of art made by children in the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp, just a little north of Prague. Many of the paintings were about topics that one could imagine would be very present on a child's mind in that situation, such the train transports and visions of home, but others had a much darker tone. These paintings offer a clearer window into the children's experience in the ghetto. The one that was most striking to me was a painting of an execution by a child of about 7 or 8. This memorial and exhibit set the tone for the rest of the Jewish Quarter, which had exhibits on Jewish religion and traditions, multiple synagogues (including the oldest synagogue outside of Israel), and the Old Jewish Cemetery. The Quarter was the most meaningful thing I saw while we were in Prague. My primary area of study is Holocaust history, so it was really special to be able to actually see an area that I have learned so much about. The Quarter was also particularly interesting to me because it was the only place I encountered in Prague that fully acknowledged what happened there during World War II. I did not see anything anywhere else (except briefly at the Lobkowicz Mansion) in the city that recognized the atrocities that occurred in the city under Nazi rule; even our tour guide from a few days before didn't mention the Holocaust or the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia once. I imagine this is because memories of Communist rule are much fresher than those of Nazi rule and therefore obscure other painful parts of Czech history, but it was a bit unsettling nonetheless. The Quarter carried so much more meaning since it was a sort of stand-alone memorial for the Holocaust.
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| A small section of the list of names of Czechoslovakian Jews that were murdered in the Holocaust |
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| Old Jewish Cemetery |
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| Spanish Synagogue |
Later that day Kendall and I hiked up Petrin Hill to a viewing tower that looks like a smaller version of the Eiffel Tower. The sun came out just as we began our trek, so we enjoyed a blue sky hike and a sunset once we reached the top of the tower. It was so interesting to see the vast sprawl of Prague from the top - just as I had begun to feel as though I had a grasp on my way around the city, I was reminded that it extends so much farther past what I have been able to experience. We began the journey back down as the sun started to go down, but the maze of pathways turned it into more of an adventure than we had originally planned. After a staircase that led to nowhere and a little bit of off-roading, we finally found a path that led us down the hill back towards the tram station to take us back to the hostel and made it back unscathed and only slightly muddy.
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| Partway up Petrin Hill |
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| View of Castle Town from Petrin Hill |
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| Memorial to the victims of Communism on Petrin Hill |
Coming soon: updates from Leipzig!
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