Monday late...

Just a quick post as it is late and frankly, I am tired. Today was an absolutely wonderful day. Temperatures had to be in the 60s, and it was great to walk around. More sun--I will certainly be more tan than any one who stayed in Ohio, with the exception of a good friend who is tanning... I am tired in part because we walked to the castle, and it was, as those who have done it know, a hike. It was made more of an adventure because I brought my camera, and that 35 pounds seemed like much more than that by the time we made it up the last hill. It was a bit frustrating, as we had dawdled throughout the day and we missed the light Not that it would have mattered--the wind was so strong I would not have been able to take the photo that I had planned, as it would have shaken the camera. I see (and feel) another trip up the hill.

This afternoon we went through the Jewish Quarter, and it is sobering and thought provoking. There were 130, 000 or Jewish people in Praha at the start of the German Protectorate in 1938 after the Munich Accords. By the start of the war, the number was less as many fled, if they could, or if they could bear to leave their homes and their lives. More than 78,000 Jews from Bohemia and the surrounding area were killed by the Nazi regime , and less than 10,000 returned at all to the area at the end of the war. Many of those later fled to the US or later, to Israel, to escape the anti-Jewish sentiment that was prevalent in the communist east.

I suppose that these numbers are but a fraction of the more than 6 million Jews killed across Europe, or the 15-20 million Russians who died in those six years. But there two visual representations of those 78,000 in Prague that almost makes your heart stop. The Pinkus Synagogue contains both of them. The synagogue is essential empty, but the walls are covered with every name of all those who were killed, with their date of birth and the date of their death, if known. Names of children, mothers, fathers, grandparents, and those who never had a chance for a family all are recorded in a neat, hand-lettered script. When you see that three year olds and teenagers, the middle-aged and the elderly all were wiped out, often within days of each other, it brings to your heart that those 78,000 were not just names. It makes you imagine what all 6 million plus names would look like, and the loss is incalculable, but more so, unimaginable. How big would that building have to be?

Further putting a face on an unimaginable number is the art exhibit of the children of the "local" concentration camp. It was not a death camp like Auschwicz or Mauthausen, but more of a transit camp for thousands who were later destined for those camps. The camp housed children--many thousands passed through the camp, and thousands died at the camp from disease and even starvation. While there, in an attempt to make it "normal" as possible, the Jewish community structure developed schools and taught art, music and all the normal subjects, all in the most abnormal of circumstances. This artwork is on display less than fifty feet away from the names of some of the artists who were killed. These artists, some only six years old, drew pictures of what the transit trains to the death camps looked like, and drew heartbreaking pictures of what they remember before the camps.

Maybe it is easier to imagine the horror of 6 million by seeing 78,000 names, and easier still by seeing the artwork of a few children.

More from Prague tomorrow.