So, there I was, in Prague. Let me first take a moment to fully appreciate the fact that I was able to spend my 21st birthday in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. [moment taken]. The first two days were all about discovering the city, eating all of the strange combinations of dough and bacon, honey and wine and shit like that. I walked a lot, felt extremely inadequate a couple of times and was absolutely sure, at least one, that I was gonna pee my pants cause we wouldn't find public bathrooms and I didn't want to pay to use one.
On our third day in Prague, we decided to do something different: we went to visit a concentration camp an hour away from the city. Don't get the wrong, the mindless traveling was great, but sometimes you just get that feeling that you need to experience the unsettling reality, just to make sure you understand how lucky you are just to be allowed to exist.
So I went to Terezin. At first I was just amazed at the size of that camp. It was literally a small city with buildings, parks, synagogue, everything. I guess I was mostly uncomfortable with the fact that if I didn't know, I would have guessed that this place was just a small town in the rural parts of the country. But this was the concentration camp that a lot of Jewish people went to right before leaving for Auschwitz.
First lesson of the day: just because you see it, it doesn't mean you know its history.
We made our way to the museum. There, thousands of drawings done by children when they were in the camp were in exhibition. Most drawings showed the kids running around, their parents, trains, food, happy faces, death. Just like that. Death was not only common in their drawings, it seemed normal. By growing up in this sick environment, thousands of children were led to believe that unnecessary death was natural. The drawings seem to suggest that they became desensitized by it.
Second lesson of the day: sometimes people become indifferent even the most horrendous things. That happens when feeling is not an option anymore.
After that, we went to see the barracks. There, we saw a big room where they used to have the "theater company". In the midst of all the agony and pain, these people found hope in the arts. While looking at the names and the profiles of some of the people in the camp, I was completely blown away to find out that many of the people who were sent to Terezin––and later to Auschwitz––were educated men and women who held prestigious positions in society, or high ranked military personnel that fought the First World War. These men and women probably believed that their "superior" status in society would differentiate them from "the rest". But there they were, pilled up with thousands of other people from different backgrounds, professions, social economic status etc...
Third Lesson of the day: Society tries to create this image that if you are part of the "prestigious few" you will be above anything. Don't be fooled, injustice and tragedy can happen to anyone.
Lastly, while walking around the camp I realized that that was the place that a few decades ago stole the life of so many people. Yet, now it is the home of some restaurants, shops, bus stops and public parks. Even though a lot of the camp is preserved by the government, some of it became part of the city. Decades ago Terezin was overcrowded with Jewish citizens who were unwillingly placed there and who left only to be allocated to an extermination camp. Today, people drive around Terezin, pass it on their way to work, walk in and out as they please.
Forth lesson of the day: the hardest part about visiting a place where so much injustice took place is not the fact that you are obligated to recognize how sick the world can be. The hardest part is to understand that life always goes on.
Going to Terezin this week made me feel deeply embarrassed. I was embarrassed to be part of the human race, to realize that human beings are capable of committing crimes that I will never understand. On Sunday, for the first time in my life, I learned how it feels like to be ashamed of being part of something. I was ashamed of being human.
