Monday 12 April 2010
Terezin
Dorit and I have been on holiday this past week and went one day to Terezin (perhaps better known as Theresienstadt). This is just an hour's bus ride north of Prague and was used by the Nazis during WW2 as a ghetto for Jews from throughout Europe. The vast majority of them were later transferred to Auschwitz. The town was originally built as a garrison town and prison in the late 18th century and is laid out in straight streets and regimented blocks. (More details can be found on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_concentration_camp.)
We went on a coldish but clear day to find the town almost deserted of visitors which gave everything a slightly surreal feel. Visiting the museum and other buildings was very sobering, especially the section where drawings by some of the children in the ghetto of life before and during their time at Terezin. Reading the detailed lists of names, home towns, ages, destinations of the people who went through this camp was almost overwhelming. Over and over again, the question kept coming back "Why?". Why so much detail? Why the need to know everything? Why record all this? And yet, in the midst of the horror of the camp, there were moments where something of the human spirit of the people came through. The drawings by the children; the newssheets produced on typewriters and distributed in very few (sometimes solitary) copies; the music and drama performances and the self-sacrificial care given by nurses and doctors to the sick and the dying.
Perhaps it was all the more poignant a visit as it came just a few days after we celebrated the resurrection. Here was evidence, if ever it was needed, of the reason for the cross. Humanity's innate capacity for hatred and evil, exemplified by the cross and the holocaust, never ceases to astound. But perhaps it should also warn. The people who ran the camps, who logged the arrivals and the departures were human just like us. And if we are encouraged by the strength of the humanity shown in the drama and music of the camp we need also to be challenged by the fact that the inhumanity shown is something that we are as capable of as anyone. Evil will be overcome only through the work of Jesus on the cross. It is only through the cross that we can cry, in the face of horror, "Death, where is your victory?"
We went on a coldish but clear day to find the town almost deserted of visitors which gave everything a slightly surreal feel. Visiting the museum and other buildings was very sobering, especially the section where drawings by some of the children in the ghetto of life before and during their time at Terezin. Reading the detailed lists of names, home towns, ages, destinations of the people who went through this camp was almost overwhelming. Over and over again, the question kept coming back "Why?". Why so much detail? Why the need to know everything? Why record all this? And yet, in the midst of the horror of the camp, there were moments where something of the human spirit of the people came through. The drawings by the children; the newssheets produced on typewriters and distributed in very few (sometimes solitary) copies; the music and drama performances and the self-sacrificial care given by nurses and doctors to the sick and the dying.
Perhaps it was all the more poignant a visit as it came just a few days after we celebrated the resurrection. Here was evidence, if ever it was needed, of the reason for the cross. Humanity's innate capacity for hatred and evil, exemplified by the cross and the holocaust, never ceases to astound. But perhaps it should also warn. The people who ran the camps, who logged the arrivals and the departures were human just like us. And if we are encouraged by the strength of the humanity shown in the drama and music of the camp we need also to be challenged by the fact that the inhumanity shown is something that we are as capable of as anyone. Evil will be overcome only through the work of Jesus on the cross. It is only through the cross that we can cry, in the face of horror, "Death, where is your victory?"
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