"Here in Terezín, life is hell and when I'll go home again, I can't yet tell"

Today we visited Lidice and Terezín. Lidice is a town outside of Prague that was destroyed over the course of two days in summer 1942 by the Nazis. Terezín is a military fortress and town that was used by the Nazis as a Jewish ghetto and concentration camp. After visiting these two sites and learning about these tragedies through museums and tours, we were asked to reflect on the degree of our emotional understanding - did the day's activities help us step into the Czech perspective?

I have not had the opportunity to see Lidice (the movie) yet, but from previous experiences, I have always found that I better understand a situation when it is put into the context of a few people's struggles. When you see large numbers, it's really hard to make a human connection to the tragedy. For example, I remember hearing a lot about the Holocaust in school and from some of my Jewish peers, but one of the first times it hit home for me was when I read and watched "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." All of the sudden, it wasn't millions of people who died, it was the character I had come to know and love.

Today, I felt most connected to the tragedies when I saw the individual stories. I loved the statues of the children at Lidice because it helped me picture this group of children who all had unique personalities and relationships, dreams and aspirations. For the same reason, I loved the first floor of the museum in Terezín where they had exhibits of the children's artwork. I looked at the drawings that reminded me so much of the ones I had done at that age and felt connected to the children who had their lives taken away from them at such a young age. One of the things I will remember from the exhibit was the poem written by one of the boys. He talked about life in Terezín, concluding, "Here in Terezín, life is hell and when I'll go home again, I can't yet tell."

This hit me hard because I have a strong connection to my family and I have experienced bouts of homesickness throughout my life where all I wanted to go was home to be with my family. I can't even imagine what it would be like to not be able to see them or to not be able to return to my home.

Overall, I think museums and tours succeed when they are able to show you human experiences. I think both sites did a good job of giving us the details that make the story more personal. Many times it's all too easy to walk away from a fact or figure, but when you see the human there, you have an obligation to try to understand.

I believe that it is important to go see these places and to try your best to put yourself in the people's position. After all, that's how these tragedies occur: when we are able to convince ourselves that the people we are hurting aren't people. Once we see each other as humans, it becomes much harder to hurt each other or to ignore the past.

From our experiences today, I think I understand more about what happened and while I can't say it doesn't make me uncomfortable to think about these tragedies, I think it's a necessary discomfort. By understanding the past, we can prevent the similar tragedies from happening in the future.