Prague - Terezín and the Slavin Cemetery

It's our third day in Prague and I really can't get over how amazing this place is. I'm constantly surprised at how easy it is to communicate with a series of keywords, fumbling charades, and a friendly smile. I remember, before we got here, being really nervous about not being able to speak the language and had about a thousand panic dreams about getting lost, or horribly offending someone and subsequently being chased by several armed hoodlums. Needless to say, this is a non-issue and everyone has been so friendly and helpful.

We decided to be a bit adventurous today and attempt to find one of the harder assignment landmarks: the concentration camp in Terezín. This required us to take a greyhound-style bus, which I must admit, made me slightly nervous that we would horribly misunderstand the instructions and board a bus to Russia or something, but Jen's German-speaking abilities saved the day and we made it to our destination without disaster.

We decided to join forces with four other girls from the Field Study, which was both wonderful and trying at the same time. It was great to get to know them and we had a great time traipsing around the city while we waited for the return bus back to Prague.

The Terezín concentration camp was first a prison and a fort. Gavrilo Princip, the man who shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the event that is widely regarded as what started World War I, died while he was detained there. After it became a concentration camp in the second World War, it housed Jews and Roma, thousands of which died while interned there.

It was pretty surreal walking around the place, partially because on one hand it didn't look as dower as I'm sure it once did when it was actively a concentration camp, and yet when we went into the solitary confinement building and saw all the tiny cells side by side, you couldn't help absorbing some of the desolateness of what had happened here.

The other part that made the whole experience not entirely what we expected, was that it was a beautiful sunny day. The sun shone through every window, into every corner of the yard, and through all the tunnels, making them seem bright and inviting; it seemed a stark contrast from the hundreds of graves at the entrance, and the history of the confines within. It didn't take long for us to want to get the hell out of there simply because we could.

We had a few hours to kill before the bus back to Prague was scheduled to leave, so we found a little restaurant, ordered some goulash (delicious tasty meatssss) and did some serious people watching. The highlight of this endeavour was when a man rode up to the place on a bicycle carrying two empty 2L bottles which he then brought up to the bar and had the barman fill up with beer from the tap. 

Is this my soulmate?

We got back to Prague with a few hours to kill before we were due to meet up with some other members of the group for dinner so Jen and I decided to knock another assignment landmark off the list and went to find The Slavin Cemetery at Vyšehrad.

I am absolutely kicking myself today, because after an hour of wandering aimlessly around the gravestones we headed back to the hostel and I found out at breakfast this morning that my favourite artist Alphonse Maria Mucha is buried there! I thought he was buried in Paris, because that's where he did the majority of his art, but he's here!

Times of the Day, 1899 - Alphonse Mucha

We might have time to go back, but considering how full our days have been and how many more assignments we have to find, I'm sort of doubtful. Alas, I'll just have to make a return trip and pay my respects then.