Day 1: A Wake-up Call

In which we become oriented (or disoriented) with the Czech Republic.

After our exceptionally long journey to a foreign land, we (my spouse, my sister and I) arrived in Prague (aka Praha). We were greeted by our loving parents, who, I am happy to say, are looking well. I was very glad to see them after the 20 months since I last saw them.

Here I will introduce you to my traveling companions:

the mother, the sister (hereafter referred to as TT), the father, some crazy bum (JK, of course, the spouse)

Anyway, after this reunion, we drove (which experience is worthy of its own little section and I will thus defer speaking of it until later) to a unique and rather awful place. A little town called Ledice. (I will also defer discussing pronunciation and other intricacies of the Czech language for a while as well, but for your immediate benefit, "c" is said "ts.")

Ledice

Do not be deceived by the beautiful and serene aspect of this photo. Ledice has a violent and tragic history. Back in 1942, the Nazis obliterated this small mining village as retaliation for the assasination of a German official, Reinhard Heydrich. No one from the village had anything to do with the assasination (which, I believe, was carried out by Czech resistors). Anyway, the Nazis decided this village would be used as a tool to discourage resistors in the future. The village was destroyed. The people in it were slaughtered. Men, women, and even children.

depiction of the brutality

This memorial represented the ~82 children killed from the village. They were taken to concentration camps and then gassed. About a handful of the youngest children were placed with German families and essentially knew nothing about what happened to their families for a long time.


Pretty much all that was left of the village


The grounds of the place are so beautiful and peaceful now - a fitting way to commemorate such horrific violence

The museum, filled with artifacts and photos of the people who lived here make the reality of what happened come into sharp focus. Hearing about Nazi brutality doesn't have nearly the same effect as being in one of these places. Seeing the faces of the people. Unforgettable.

We saw other places this same day, but I think I will put them in a separate post.