Learning About History Can Be Hard

One of the sights we saw this week was Auschwitz concentration camp. Even though we had prepared to go there, it was a place I didn't really want to visit. But it's one of those places that you have to visit. Our trip started with a one and a half hour bus ride to the town of Oswiecim. If the ride had been much longer it may have been more memorable because Jenna was feeling car sick. Luckily she made it and felt much better once we got off the bus.

The web sight for Auschwitz recommends visitors be 14 and older. If you know our family, you realize that only half of us are that old, (Seth is close!). But what do you do when you are traveling as a family and don't have a friend or family member to leave the younger ones with? If you arrive before 3:00 you have to visit with a guided tour. Thinking that would be hard with our younger children, we decided to enter after 3:00 when we could visit on our own which would give us more flexibility as we tried to make the visit age appropriate. Our bus arrived at 2:30 so we found a bench outside and ate our snacks. (Eating snacks on benches seems to be a common occurrence for us). It was a good thing I ate then, because it was much later until I even felt like eating again!

At 3:00 we were able to pass under the gate “Work brings freedom”.  We took a family picture, and joked that it wouldn't make a very good Christmas card picture. I'm not sure how to describe my feelings as I walked around the camp. I felt sadness, anger, frustration, grief, helplessness, and horror. As we went into the museums, we left Joe and Jenna outside until we had previewed them and decided which ones they should see. The museums are in the actual buildings (called blocks) that were used for housing, medical experiments, torture and interrogations. After seeing the one about interrogation, and punishments Sam said the ones who were killed in the gas chambers right away were the lucky ones. After exiting that museum I just had a sick to my stomach kind of feeling. I wasn't sure I wanted to see anymore and I sure didn't want to think about eating. But I continued on.

Gate into Auschwitz

After visiting the first camp we took the shuttle bus to Auschwitz II also know as Birkenau. The Germans built that camp in 1942 when they realized the first camp wasn't big enough. I was amazed at the size of the second camp and it's mind boggling to realize it was all planned out. We only had 45 minutes to spend at the second camp in order to catch our bus back to Krakow. We followed the train track to the end of the line. That is where prisoners were unloaded and either sent to the gas chamber or chosen to live a little longer. At the end of the war, the Germans blew up the gas chambers so now they are just piles of bricks.

End of the rail line.  Straight down the track is the entrance to Auschwitz II.

Remains of a Gas chamber

At the end of our day, some of our family members were hungry and grabbed a hamburger, but I still didn't want to eat anything. There is also a restaurant at the camp, but that is the last place I would want to eat!

A few days after visiting I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I am glad I went, but right now I don't think I ever need to return there. Even looking at the photos we took gives me a chilling feeling. I hope we didn't scar our kids for life by taking them there. I hope as they get older and learn more about the Holocaust they will remember being there and that they can do their part to make sure nothing like that happens again. We talked about tolerance, and accepting others despite our differences. I hope in some small way our family can be better people after taking the time to visit Auschwitz.

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Thoughts on Auschwitz

I really had a good experience at Auschwitz and I don't mean that I enjoyed it.

As I understand things, Auschwitz started as a Polish military base that was taken over, re-purposed, and expanded by the Germans during the war.  The camp was not big enough and so the Germans built Auschwitz Birkenau (Auschwitz II) and other camps.  Auschwitz Birkenau was massive, about 10 times the size of Auschwitz I.  During their years of operation over 1.3 million people entered these camps.  1.1 million died.  At one point there were over 100,000 people living at Birkenau.  The scale of this operation took enormous energy and effort.  So much more could have been done had they focused that energy and effort on something positive.  It made my heart heavy to consider the magnitude of the effort and the number of people who went along and carried it out.

We visited on a cool, breezy fall day and I found myself feeling guilty for enjoying the beauty of the day while we were in the prison camps.  The beautiful day and the camps didn't seem to go together.  Something was out of place.  I felt like the camps should have been something to experience in black and white but instead we had a bright, colorful, cool day.  There were patches of green grass and the sites and buildings were immaculately cared for.  Birkenau was so large that it felt like a big park.  The few fireplaces and chimneys that remained standing at Birkenau were a reminder that it wasn't just a park.

The displays in the buildings were, of course, powerful.  All of the photos were black and white which seemed appropriate and conveyed the feeling that this was not the documentation of a happy time and place.  Among the displays there were piles and piles of items taken from the prisoners:  prosthetic limbs, crutches and braces, pots and pans, tooth brushes, shoe polish, eye glasses, prayer blankets, shoes, suitcases, and hair.  The mountain of hair was just sickening.  The suitcases were what affected me the most.  Most of the suitcases had names and birth dates painted on them in big letters.  That made it easy to remember the people associated with the suitcases.  Maybe it affected me the way it did because we are living out of suitcases (backpacks) right now while we are traveling and I could really relate.  The suitcases/backpacks represent for me the container of all my available worldly possessions.  Having that taken away would be a big deal.  Of course, I'd rather have my life than my backpack...

I don't consider myself an enthusiastically optimistic person.  Optimistic yes, but I'm not bubbly and demonstrative about it.  Yet, during my time at the Auschwitz camps I thought again and again about the good prisoners and guards who continued to do good, who helped other people as much as they could, and who resisted where and when possible despite the terrible circumstances.  I know those good people existed.  The thought of them left me with a positive feeling of Auschwitz while the brutal reality remained ominously in the background.

Sculptures made of salt!!!???

We started down into the salt mine with 380 steps. Looking down the center of the stairs was really cool because you could see at least 100 flights of stairs to go. Once we got to the bottom the tour guide told us to stay with him because “you will get lost and not survive.” The first room we went into had a sculpture made out of salt. The statue was of Copernicus who visited the mine a long time ago. In the next room there were sculptures of someone giving a gift to the queen out of salt. In that room there was a recording that told us about what the sculptures were about.

The next room contained a stick with four pegs sticking out. People pushed the pegs so heavy loads could be lifted to other levels of the mine. After that we went deeper into the mine and saw original stairs for the mine that were built about 700. On the ceiling you could see were people used chisels of pickaxes to carve out the mine. While going down there were a few sculptures of dwarfs. The next room contained a wooden log with pegs sticking out. This one was for horses. The horses could lift 2 tons of weight at once. Once a horse was brought into the mine it was never taken out unless sick or old.

Once we got down to the next level the guide told us that water ruins the salt and could cause sink holes. The miners made wooden pipes to get the water out of the mine. In the same room there was an original pipe. The next room that we came across was about as big as a stake center building. It was about 30 meters high and really long. Hanging from the ceiling were huge chandeliers made out of salt crystals. On the walls were many carvings such as a amazing sculpture of the nativity. One of the other sculptures was made of salt crystal with salt crystal all around it. My favorite sculpture in the room was the one of the last super that looked so three dimensional and looks like it was carved in really deep, but really it was only 12 centimeters thick.

The room after that was a snack room with a ton of supports to keep it up. The guide lead us to the next room that was blown with dynamite and had no supports. In the bottom of the room there was water. The water did not destroy the salt because the water could not hold any more salt. In the same room was a statue of someone holding a staff. Earlier in the mine we saw sculptures of how people in the olden days got a dangerous chemical out of the rocks that was explosive. Miners had to crawl on their hands and knees with a big long stick with a fire on the end. When the fire touched the rock the rock exploded. Hopefully you didn't get crushed by a falling rock.

The next room contained water also, but there too there was enough salt in it that the salt did not collapse. The deepest we went was 130 meter deep while the deepest point in the mine is 330 meters. The highest room was 36 meters. On the ground in some places there were original rail tracks. The most amazing thing about the mine is that salt in the the middle ages was as valuable as gold. The sculptures were all made by miners not professionals.

To get up out of the mine we went up a six story elevator. The elevator had six floors to take people up. The people crammed as many people could possibly fit in the elevator. The elevator was shaky with small holes in the walls. When we got to the top we got some ice cream and left.

Sculpture of Copernicus

Miner giving salt mine to King/ Queen

With this block of salt you could buy a village with 50 houses and people

                                                  When salt was as valuable as gold anyway

These are the pipes that they pumped water
out of the mine with

These are the Miners that have to crawl on their knees with torches

DO A FLIP!!!

 Across our travels we have run into many street performers. We've seen everything. We have seen an accordion player, a guy singing in the forest, opera singers, magicians, Statues that dance when you give them money, people that bang sticks on drums, saxophone players, people that dress up as movie characters, a bassoon player, a violin player, a mini band, people that dress up as knights, people on stilts that tie balloons into shapes and animals, a puppet master, a cowboy with a guitar in his underwear, artists, a clown, and groups of people that do flips and break dance.

We have given money to all the good ones (for the bassoon player I wanted to put the coins down the hole in the top of the bassoon). The clown "accidentally" dropped one of his juggle things and when someone picked it up for him he dropped another one,  it went on like this until the person walked away. My favorite ones were the accordion player and the puppet master. The accordion player played the accordion and sang. I liked it because you never see accordions, sure you see them on TV shows and in movies, but I don't think I had ever seen an accordion in real life before that. I liked the puppet master because he had a lot of famous people like Elton John, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, and Elvis Presley. He had them singing and dancing. I now want to take puppet lessons. The guy singing in the forest was a very good singer, but he chose a bad spot to sing. He was in a national park and the only way to get there was riding on a ferry. He sang hymns... I think, I couldn't understand him because it was in German, but it sounded like hymns.

I will update this post every time I see a new street performer.

Video of the puppet master

Its hard to see, but the accordion player is in the back

Joe against the Knight

Jenna with a street performer

Dresden, Germany

Of all the experiences we had in Dresden Germany, I think our children will remember three things the most:  soccer, signals, and the playground.  We rented an attic apartment (it's very nice so if you are ever needing a place to stay in Dresden I highly recommend it) from a family and they had two children who love to play football (soccer).  Just a short walk from the house was a park with a place to play soccer and I think the kids played nearly every night we were in Dresden.  

With our new friends

The second thing I think the kids will remember is the cross walk signals.  To stop the little red man holds out his arms straight. and to go the little greet man looks like he is walking holding a map.  So of course at almost every light we saw (and we see a lot since we are walking a lot) some of my children imitated the signals.  Later we also found some of the signals with a girl, but I didn't get a picture.  Yes we are such tourists!

Stop signal

Go signal

We spent some time looking at the old part of Dresden where we attended a church service highlighting the Dresden Boys choir sang, we saw the Green Vault where all the jewels are kept, visited the main square and the palace.  But the place where the kids really got excited was a playground we happened to find.  We have seen lots of parks, but most of them include walking paths, benches, a pond, and trees, but not playgrounds.  The structure was huge and had some unique play features.  It was funny to see the kids fly out of the big slide (not the one in the pictures but a bigger one on the other end).

Statue of Martin Luther

Courtyard of the palace

Playground in Dresden

Photo finish of Seth and Joe racing down the slides

And if any of you have lost socks in your laundry, they may have found their way to the laundromat in Dresden!

Laundromat decorated with lost socks

Futsal in Dresden Germany

We are staying with a nice family in Dresden.  We have rented the attic apartment, the grandparents live in the middle floor and the family lives on the lower floors.  They are a mom, dad, and sons 8 and 11.  They are super nice and patient with us since we don't speak any German.

One evening the boys and one of their cousins came up with their grandma to ask if we wanted to play soccer with them.  I was anticipating playing soccer on grass.  They took us to play futsal which is soccer on a basketball court.  It. Was. AWESOME.  There were fences all the way around and about 20 feet high.  The court surface was squishy rubber surface like a running track.  The goals were just a sturdy aluminum frame box.  We played for about 2 hours and had a blast.  We mixed up the teams every 20 or 30 minutes and the language barrier wasn't a problem.

A funny thing happened while we were playing.  A dog no taller than a soccer ball got onto the court.  All of the kids ran away from the dog.  He immediately ran to the ball and tried to bite it.  His head was pretty big and it looked like he could damage the ball.  At this point I noted that the dog looked a little dirty and I just thought he was an outdoor dog.  I went to where he was playing with the ball and took it from him.  By this time the owner had come through the gate to retrieve the dog.  So I tried to make friends with the dog and grab his collar.  All of the sudden all of the German children started yelling swear words at me.  It really confused me.  I couldn't understand what they were afraid of.  I asked, "Does he bite?"  The oldest German boy pointed to the dog, said the English swear word for "poo", and repeated it over and over until I understood that the dog had rolled in poo.  By this time I had touched the dog and had dog poo on my hands.  The children thought this was absolutely hilarious.  I scored two goals because they wouldn't guard me when I put my hand out.  Reminded me of "the cheese touch" from the Wimpy Kid books.

Anyhow, for me one highlight of Germany was futsal.

Czech it out!

 I really enjoyed our time in Prague, Czech Republic.  It's certainly on my list of places I would like to return to someday.  Here is a little sampling of  what we experienced while there.

An old cemetery that was overgrown with ivy and bushes

Eating at an outdoor cafe.  They are NOT concerned about getting you in and out quickly

So many of the buildings are absolutely beautiful .  We didn't go in so I can't say if they are as beautiful on the inside. 

The sidewalks were all made of the same stone, but  each street had a  different pattern.  

Street performers playing beautiful classical music.  Notice the different pattern of sidewalk

We spent a day at Charles Castle, which was actually a whole complex of buildings inside the castle walls.  While there we took a turn shooting a cross bow.  Any guesses who got the best shot in our family?  Let's just say that my dad would be so proud of me!

Shooting a crossbow

Seth, Jenna and Joe with a Knight

We visisted Wenceslas Square (which is really a street and not a square) and saw the statue of Good King Wenceslas.  I thought about singing the Christmas carol about him, but I couldn't remember the words.  He was a 10th century king and is given credit for Christianizing his nation.

In front of the statue of Good King Wenceslas

We watched the Astronomical Clock put on it's little show at the top of the hour, then climbed up to see the views from the top.  I like looking out at cities from high places.

Astronomical Clock

The Astronomical Clock and tower

Joe and I at the top of the Astronomical Clock

View from top of Astronomical Clock Tower

Another view from top of Clock tower (notice the TV tower in the far distant right)

Another View from the tower

We walked across the Charles Bridge along with hundreds of other tourists.  It was built in the 1300's and for nearly 400 years it was the only bridge in Prague to cross the Vitava River.  There are statues lined up along the bridge and a big tower at one end.

Charles Bridge

Seth and Joe on Charles Bridge.  Prague Castle is in the background. 

Seth with Charles Bridge to the left and Prague Castle in the background.  

Tower at one end of Charles Bridge.  

And one slightly strange part of Prague is the baby tower.  It's a tall televesion tower that has statues of babies climbling up and down.  I'm not quite sure how that fits into the beautiful archicheture of Prague, but it's there.

Baby tower

Close up on the babies on the tower

Temple and Church in Germany

The main reason we came to Germany was to go to the temple in Freiburg. We went to it a few days ago, and it was pretty neat. Besides the usual super awesome spiritual feeling that you get in the temple, we got baptized in Hungarian. It was pretty neat, but we had no idea what they were saying. The Freiburg temple is assigned to 7 languages, that is pretty amazing. They are: German, Czech, Romanian, Russian, English, Polish, and Hungarian.

The Freiburg Temple, even though you can't see Moroni on top.

 We wandered back to the train after that and took a little detour through this market type square thing. We got bratwursts, a typical German food I guess. It was basically a huge hot dog on a tiny dinner roll. It tasted like that too.

Today we went to church in Germany. Our family has made a kind of commitment to go to church for the full 3 hours every Sunday, whether we understand the language or not. We left an hour early, figuring that would be plenty of time to get to the church on time. Of course, we didn't count on the trams arriving at odd times, or not understanding a single word of German. Due to those two things, we did pretty well arriving at church only 3 minutes late. This has been kind of a repeating thing, we are late to church a lot, it seems.

The church building we went to today, you can see the sign between the pillars a little bit.

After church they had this dinner thing, that they apparently have every week, so of course, we stayed. They served sauerkraut, and if you don't know what that is, I'll describe it. So you know when you carve jack-o-lanterns, and you have to scoop out all the goop? Ya, imagine that goop, but with veggies instead of seeds, and you have sauerkraut. Needless to say, it wasn't my favorite.

Anyway, Germany has been pretty cool so far, even though I spend most of my time doing school it seems like. Our apartment was great, and we even got to play some soccer with the family downstairs.

FOOD

On our trip so far we have had to eat out a lot and we have tried many places, but these are the most recent restaurants we have been to. When we went to Philadelphia we ordered some Philly cheese steaks. I thought that they were okay. They were not the best thing ever, but not the worst. In Boston we got some Lobster and Clam Chowder. The Lobster was pretty good, it tasted like normal fish. The Clam Chowder on the other hand was Really Good! The sauce was creamy and warm and the potatoes tasted soft, the crackers made it great with a slight crunch. The Clam in the Clam Chowder tasted like a lighter Salmon making it the Best food we have had on this trip! We also stopped in New York City and got some New york style Pizza where you fold it in half and eat it.

Lobster roll and Clam Chowder

 While in the Czech Republic we tried a little bit of Garlic Bread and beef goulash. The garlic bread was really good! It was at a restaurant called: Lavica. In the restaurant I found out about a new fruit called a Physalis. Also in Czech Republic we got some breads and danishes. They are not as sweet as in America. Here in Germany we had sauerkraut witch looks like the inside of a pumpkin. It did not taste very good to me. Also, here in Germany we had a Brautwurst which is a big sausage stick with ketchup and a bun. 

Physalis

This is a great restuarant if you go to prague go here

Brautwurst

Check on this later it will be updated

Freiberg Temple [BY JENNA]

We went to the temple.  It was a small temple.  The visitor's center was closed so Joe and I got to sit in the temple waiting room because daddy, Sam, Seth, and mommy were in the temple.

The Freiberg temple was built for the German people because they couldn't leave to go to another temple.  They kept sending in applications to go to Switzerland to the temple and the government said, "No."  The people would immediately re-apply.  One of the church members had friends in the government.  His friends called him to talk and told him, "Your people need to stop making all of these applications.  Why don't you build a temple in Germany?"  That's how it started.

Here are some pictures.

This is the temple.

This is me in front of the temple.

Boring

This is going to be a boring blog post. It is going to be boring because it is about school :( and there are  no pictures.  In Washington DC we did school every couple days and it wasn't that hard. Since then, we have decided to amp it up a little bit for Joe and me.  We signed up for a few on BYU independent study. It has been a challenge and I enjoy it. Sam signed up for 7 classes online at Open High School. He is busy most of the time with it. Jenna has a workbook and she does a few pages everyday.  Our history class is going out and seeing things.

Prague 10k - Rich's Version

Wow.  Elaine and I ran in the Prague 10k Saturday night and it was different in several ways from other events we've participated in.  Elaine's post has pictures.

• The race was at night.  I wasn't sure how it would be running through city streets (some times on cobblestones) in the dark.  My opinion is mixed on this.  The parts of the course that were along the Vltava River and/or in view of the Prague Castle were awesome.  The castle sits up on a hill and was brightly lit.  Seeing it from across the river was truly spectacular.  Several parts of the course were on cobblestones.  They are pretty to look at but are not an even surface to run on.  It wasn't so bad where there was enough light to see but there were several places where the course was completely dark and those times I prayed that my feet wouldn't find any holes or unevenness that could cause me harm.  My prayers were answered.
• It was a HUUUUGE event.  The scope and scale of everything was just huge.  There were thousands of runners.  During the whole race I had to watch out for other runners.  It felt like rush hour.  It didn't feel like it ever really opened up.  It felt much bigger than anything we had run in before.  There were "elite" runners that were treated special.  There was a procession of flags at the start for each country represented by a runner.  There was a "lead" car that had the race timer on top.  There was a cameraman on the back of a motorcycle.  There were at least 4 bands playing on the course.  City streets and trams were shutdown just for the race.  There were spectators all along the course.  It felt really big.
• The course looped back on itself.  There was one part of the course that we passed 5 times.  I was a little worried that I might make a wrong turn but there were always enough runners around me that I followed the flow and never had to make a decision about which way to turn.  In one way the looped course was nice because I actually saw the lead runners several times as they flew past going the other direction.  They probably didn't even hear me cheering for them.

I would totally recommend running this event if you are ever in Prague.

Elaine mentioned the funny instructions in the race guide:  "Women will appreciate elastic leggings that stop just below the knee."  That was probably written/translated by a man and should have been, "Men will appreciate..."

Prague 10K

I'll start right off by saying what a cool race!  On Saturday Rich and I ran in the Prague 10K,  an evening run through the streets of Prague.  This is the biggest race I have participated in.  I think there were about 3,600 runners (or as the race guide said “six hundred thousand”, I think that translation is a bit off!)   Not only were there lots of participants, but the course was lined with spectators which was really fun even though I know they were not there to cheer for me.

We picked up our race packets earlier in the day on Saturday and I laughed reading the race guide.  Here is my favorite part.  “How to Dress for the race.  Women will appreciate elastic leggings that stop just below the knee—they make for a better figure and function better than the longer ones”    I'm not sure if the translation came across just right or what.  After getting our packets, we spent the day touring Prague Castle before returning for the race.

Pre race area

At the race, there were changing tents to change into our running clothes (and no I didn't wear the elastic leggings for a better figure).  Just outside the changing tents there were several people smoking.  I didn't know that running and smoking went together.  I went to the port-a-potties and noticed there were pink ones for women (Jennys) and green ones for men (Johnnys).  After using the port-a-pottie I went to the hand washing station only to realize it wasn't a hand washing station but a men's outdoor urinal.  Welcome to Europe!  

In the Pre race area.  Notice the pink port-a-potties.

Closer to the actual starting line.  

I was in start group D and when it was time to line up I walked past group A, B, and C thinking next would be D,  but instead it was E.  I didn't know where to go so I just got in at the end of C/beginning of E group (isn't that where you would think D would be?).   Later in the race I did see the group D start area down a different street.  I was so far back I the pack that it took 4 minutes to walk to the starting line once the race began.   There were so many runners that the first K was not really running, but rather a slow jog trying to not trip over the other runners. It did open up as the race went along, but I was never alone.  

This was the start of the 5K race before the 10K race.   It was dark by the time the 10K started.  

The course was a bit confusing as it looped around the same area several times in different ways.   It's a good thing I was not the lead runner.   I was able to see the lead runners two times and they were fast!  I passed the same point on the course 4 different times so that is where we had our kids watch.  It was fun to see them 4 times during the race.  The run went through the streets of Prague in the  the Old Town Square area and across three bridges.  Absolutely beautiful!  But I had to spend more time looking at the ground than scenery because running on cobblestone requires more attention.

View of Prague Castle and Charles Bridge.  I told you it was beautiful!

At the aid station (or refreshment point as it was called in the race guide) I got a cup of water only to discover it was gassed or carbonated water.  I guess I haven't acquired the taste for it yet and it certainly didn't “refresh” me while running.  Good thing this was just a 10K so I didn't really need the water anyway.

I finished

And so did Rich.

It's always a good feeling to cross the finish line.  Soon after the finish line  there was a path for the participants to walk down to the post race area.  Once again it was congested, only this time it was full of sweaty stinky people.  But I got through and got my finishers medal, an emergency blanket that all runners received and my finishers bag of fliers and coupons all written in Czech.  I really enjoyed my first international running event.  I hope we can find a few more to participate in before this adventure is over.