Places of Petr Ginz A Child's Prague Diary WWII

Feeds

2010-10-04T18:51:00.002-04:00

DDH5FJW3P65D

Yad Vashem - Petr Ginz. Central Database Resource, Holocaust (Shoah) Victims' Names

2010-08-12T16:02:00.001-04:00

Records at Yad Vashem

Holocaust Names, Information

Records are accessible on the Internet for researching information of the missing and believed or known dead, as provided in an extensive clearinghouse of data from third parties or records of transport, and whether the person perished. See ://www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Welcome

"Full Record Details for Ginz Petr

"Source      Terezinska Pametni Kniha/Theresienstaedter Gedenkbuch, Terezinska Iniciativa, vol. I-II Melantrich, Praha 1995, vol. III Academia Verlag, Prag 2000
Last Name      GINZ
First Name      PETR
Date of Birth      01/02/1928
Key to Transport      שילוח מס. Ca מ - PRAHA,PRAHA HLAVNI MESTO,BOHEMIA,CZECHOSLOVAKIA ל - THERESIENSTADT,GHETTO,CZECHOSLOVAKIA ב- 24/10/1942
Key to 2nd Transport      שילוח מ - THERESIENSTADT,GHETTO,CZECHOSLOVAKIA ל - AUSCHWITTZ,ב- 28/09/1944
Prisoner Nr. in Transport      446
Prisoner Nr. 2nd Transport      1880
Type of material      List of Theresienstadt camp inmates
Victims' status end WWII      Perished"

From the public record.

The formal name for Yad Vashem is The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. See ://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/index.asp

Prague. View from Charles Bridge to St. Vitus' Cathedral; Gate Towers

2010-07-25T23:11:00.000-04:00

PRAGUE: VIEW TOWARD ST. VITUS' CATHEDRAL
Gate Towers

Prague, view from Charles Bridge toward the Lesser Town Bridge Tower, and Judith's Tower; and more distant St. Vitus' Cathedral

Petr Ginz lived with his family in Prague during the German occupation in World War II. He wrote poems and stories, drew, and kept a diary. He was sent to Theresienstadt ghetto (Terezin CZ), see ://www.kennesaw.edu/holocaustmemorials/amsterdam.shtml; and then to Auschwitz (Osweicim PL) where he was killed at age 16.

Some of his art and writing survived and was held at Yad Vashem in Israel, see ://www.yadvashem.org/.

He became known as a particularly gifted child. An astronaut, Ilan Ramon, took one of Petr Ginz' drawings on board the Columbia space shuttle, the tragic voyage that ended in explosion, killing all on board. See ://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/press_room/press_releases/ilan_ramon.html.

Art and writing was discovered in the attic of the family's Prague home, in 1993, and translated into English in 2007: "The Diary of Petr Ginz 1841-1942," ed. Chava Pressburger (Petr's sister), Atlantic Monthly Press NY 2007.

Other resources: See him, and read of his artwork, the diary and other writings, at ://isurvived.org/InTheNews/PetrGinz-diaries.html. For an overview of listed facts, we are invited to link to Factbites, and do so here: Factbites, Petr Ginz.

This site: Photographs and informal research on places and issues from the Diary.

See our Czech Republic Road Ways for an expanded view of the country; and our Poland Road Ways for more information on the concentration camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Petr was killed.

Lesser Town: on the castle side of the Charles Bridge. The two main towers there are the Lesser Town Bridge Tower, and the Judith, the lower of the two. The original bridge burned in 1342, and the Judith Tower is all that remains of it. The larger tower was built in the late 15th Century. See ://www.pragueexperience.com/places.asp?PlaceID=600/.

Why supplement The Diary with photographs.

Petr Ginz records, rather than narrates. The entries are succinct, not introspective, not a window into feelings: a child's inventory of the day. There are helpful and extensive editorial notes to explain places and events, but our brains wander without some Optics.

For many of us, as well, the names are hard to remember. Eastern European names, culture and locations are new. In its present, carefully historical form, the Diary may not even reach a child's library. The story, to us, asked for illustration, how the place appeared then (not our expertise) and now. The diary, particularly with its reference to the assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, would make a fine film or play.

Researching further.

As you read the Diary, look up any unfamiliar references online, including in Images. We may be out of school, or school is not covering WWII, but we can self-educate.

For a broader look at war itself, see World War 1, World War 2, Studying War; and Studying War.

There is also a 1975 film depicting the Resistance assassination of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reynhard Heydrich in 1942 in Prague, ://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-heydrich.htm, see "Operation Daybreak," ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Daybreak. Petr also writes of this event, identified by the Resistance as Operation Anthropoid. The village of Lidice was destroyed in retaliation. See://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-lidice.htm.

The informal Car-Dan Tour Company (us) has no connection to the book, except a deeply feeling one.

Assignment in a Hierarchy - Petr as Mischling; Chava Chessburger, sister

2010-07-24T18:00:00.001-04:00

Mischling.

Mixed Blood

Formal Designation, Nazi

Degrees of Mischling

Petr Ginz is not only a boy, a son, a student, a brother, nephew, grandson, person. He also is a Mischling - the Nazi designation of someone of mixed "blood" - One parent, a Jew. One parent a Roman Catholic. Their child is a Mischling. See a Nazi Certificate for this category at Lotte's story at timewitnesses.org/english/2npreviw.html. A child of mixed blood. See also "Nazi classification for Germans of mixed race" at ://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/mischlinge.html/

Each degree of Mischling carried with it with different places and times for going to life or death. Definitions and consequences, Nazi, SS, Nuremberg Laws. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischling. Petr and his sister.

His sister's recollections of what it was like to be a Mischling, and what it meant, (Chava Pressburger, who edited his diary) are in the introduction at the site here, www.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,2103166,00.html. She discusses the Mischling status, and their degree.

With a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, Petr's sister writes that the children were allowed to stay home until 14, and only then were sent to the concentration camps. So, other children - full-blood Jews - could be sent earlier. Petr's father, a Jew, only was sent to Theresienstadt toward the end of the war. A delay-dispensation of the marriage. His mother, an Aryan, remained home, and survived, as did Petr's sister, Chava Pressburger See www.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,2103166,00.html.

Prague - Wenceslas Square; Krakovska Street

2010-07-24T17:30:00.002-04:00

Good Duke Wenceslas, in Wenceslas Square, mounted, Prague CZ

Petr writes that, at one point, Jews were not allowed to walk in this Square. Page 111.

Here is Wenceslas at the Square, on his horse.

The area is not really a square - it is a long, wide boulevard that used to be a horse market. www.pragueexperience.com/places.asp?PlaceID=605. See also www.prague.net/wenceslas-square. See more on Wenceslas, and photos and post information at Czech Republic Road Ways, Wenceslas post.

Wenceslas was not a king, but a Duke of Bohemia who lived from 907-929 AD, see the Carol for St. Stephen's Day, December 26 (not a Christmas Carol, technically). See "Good King Wenceslas" at ://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/good_king_wenceslas.htm/ and correct the lyrics to "Good Prince Wenceslas" or "Good Duke Wenceslas".

Krakovska Street.

Friends: Adlers. Family friends, the Adlers, live there, at number 13. Page 72. The street is next to Wenceslas Square, info from one of the rental ads from a simple search on Krakovska Street Prague. There is also a hostel there. Mrs. Chessburger, if you ever see this and have corrections, do let us know.

Prague, Nazi Assassination. Events: "Operation Daybreak" . See 1976 Film, Prague WW II: Petr Ginz's View

2010-07-24T14:18:00.016-04:00

Operation Anthropoid
Assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heidrich
and the Czech Resistance

Later Film: Operation Daybreak

What Petr tells us about the events in Prague that came to be known as "Operation Daybreak."

For an experience of the Heydrich assassination in film, see the 1976 or 1975 film about the Czech Resistance assassinating Nazi Reinhard Heydrich*, see post here, including at Places of Petr Ginz, Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The film says that the assassination attack took place at Holesovice, a part of Prague referenced here: Places of Petr Ginz, Holesovice.

This Nazi resistance account is an exciting war story, but a tragic one, and somebody should reissue it - or do a faithful redo. Schools aren't teaching WWI or WWII much, I understand. Bring it home yourself. The Czech resistance - bravery, betrayal, superhuman effort and sacrifice.

1. Petr adds to the film story, and what he says is consistent with other sources. Having just seen the film, a scene jumps out as missing -

He writes that girls in the schools were taken out and their hair examined to help the Nazis find a brown-haired girl with a bicycle who was seen helping the assassins as they escaped from the scene. He describes those events, and they are left out of the movie.

2. Hollywood left out. Also left out: the parts of the Czech Radio and Czech Army sources about the young woman in the red hat who drove ahead of the motorcade as a signal that Heydrich was not "armed" - as I recall, that he did or did not have the armored vehicles surrounding his car as usual. That would have been a good addition to the film as well.

Next director, put it back in. Be authentic. It would be a small but needed as a realistic followup to Nazi efforts to find the assassins.

...............................................................................................................
*This 1976 Hollywood film, see ://www.answers.com/topic/operation-daybreak?cat=entertainment, is available for purchase but hard to find in any video store. Some sources list it as 1975 - see ://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075019/plotsummary.

Either way, it is worth your time and money if you are interested in life for people like Petr Ginz in Prague - the streets, the people, the events - during the Nazi Occupation.

Prague, Liben district. Reinhard Heydrich assassination background.

2010-07-24T14:18:00.015-04:00

Assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich

Petr wrote of one of the most memorable and history-changing events in Prague of his time: the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the highest ranking Nazi in Czechoslovakia and other areas contiguous, an architect of the Holocaust, and known as the Butcher of Prague.

We put together here Petr Ginz' references to that event, its aftermath, and some research about the references.

Liben.

Liben itself was of lesser importance to the event than the places where it took place, but Petr wrote of Liben particularly, and was conscious of the Nazi response. See Heydrich at FN 1.

Swastika shape, adopted and adapted by Nazis, but not original to them

Nazi: The swastika shape is also from the Sanskritl This illustration is a long big-hat hatpin, predating World War II. See Hatpins Collection Tour, Swastika or Sanskrit

Liben.

Liben was a district of Prague that was closed while the Germans tried to find those who helped partisans who attacked high-ranking Nazi, Reinhard Heydrich, see ://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/biographies/index.html/. Petr writes that Germans shoot others in reaction. Diary Pages 110, 113. The History Place notes thousands killed.

Look up the Liben area.

Noted resident: Novelist Bohumil Hrabal lived in Liben, and painted a wall with himself and cats, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohumil_Hrabal. Hrabal wrote "Closely Observed Trains," at www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/02/23/closely_observed.html, and it was the basis of a 1966 film, same name. See also art-bin.com/art/ahrabaleng.html.

Petr Ginz - Theatrical.

There is now a play about Petr Ginz, adapted by Peter Went, see ://closelyobservedproductions.blogspot.com/2008/01/petr-ginz-latest-news.html. That "Closely Observed Productions" site takes its name from the same Bohumil Hrabal, and his "Closely Observed Trains." See also ://www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/avice19.htm, and the play at the Prague Fringe Festival 2008. See also sister of Petr Ginz, Chava Pressburger, approving the work so it must be authentic, see ://www.expats.cz/prague/article/fringe-fest-2008/the-diary-of-petr-ginz/

Context of Heydrich, importance - see FN 1

.....................................................

FN 1 Reinhard Heydrich: An Introduction, two starting sources. Then go to Youtube and see footage of the funeral, at which Himmler spoke; and other film. This event features frequently in Petr Ginz' diary, sometimes in passing mention, others offer new details.

1. Heydrich. See biography and historical chronology of events at the cited History Place, at ://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/biographies/heydrich-biography.htm/ That provides the traditional format for a narrative chronology. Scroll down and find the Heydrich as Protector of Czechoslovakia. He is the one who set up the ghetto at Theresienstadt for Jews as soon as he took over his position; he liked his green Mercedes; and then read about the assassination. Details: he didn't die from fragments of the bomb, he died from the blood poisoning from the bits of car upholstery, steel, and even his own uniform that lodged in his spleen. Where else would you learn that?

2. Heydrich. The History Site gives much scholarly detail. More interesting, though, and with the same basic information but given with a voice that has an authentic real-person flair, is a site about Heydrich in a different format - would you believe the History of Clothing, at ://histclo.com/bio/h/bio-heyd.html/. See introduction to the biographical details at http://histclo.com/bio/bio.html. There is also a main Holocaust page. But clothing?

This source is odd - "Historical Boys Clothing"- is a large site that consists of photographs accompanied by discussion and biographies - odd and interesting. So, enjoy the web, and vet everything on your own.

Heydrich appears at that Historical Boys Clothing site in lederhosen with his wife in dirndl and small son, in his biographical section.
The biographical account appears to be typed into English by a non-English-speaker, with spelling or proof-reading errors, but the information to us (not expert); looks overall reliable. And we read the words more closely because we had to figure out some of them. Skimming not as easy.
Note that the assassination was by Czechs trained in Britain by British, and not actually carried out by British operatives, but that fact is corrected later by the speaker himself in the section entitled "Asassination - May 1942" and the Czech operatives Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik are named.
Who is speaking-writing? We would like a name. The sources for the information are given, but not the identity of the voice.

Fair use quote, spellings retained: a real human being did this, and one who is not a spell-checker-proofer. Fine.

Heydrich, is today known to the world as "The Hangman". He is considered by most to be the architect of the Holocaust. Adolf Eichmann is often seen as the director of the Holocaust. Eichmannwas in fact was primarily the administrator working on logistical problems. It is Heydrich more than any other single individual who planned the Holocaust and set the machinery of industrial killing in motion. Only his assisanation by British agents prevented him from seeing it through to fruition. And he would have been central to plans being prepared for the Slavs. He was beginning plans for an ethnic cleaning operation in Czechoslovakia aimed at deporting the Czechs. Heydrich at the time of his death was the third most powerful individual in NAZI Germany and in all liklihood if he had lived and the NAZIs had won the War would have been the second Führer.

Was Heydrich the first to use the term, "final solution?" Again, a fair use quote unedited:

Heydrich eventuallycame to believce that the "Jewish question" could not be solved by emmigration. About 200,000 German Jews had emmigrated, but because of the Anschluss and the seizure of Czecheslovakia, there were more Jews in the Reich and NAZI-controlled teritory than when the NAZIs seized power in 1933. After the success in the West and the defeat of the French, Heydrich wrote to the Reich Foreign Secretary Joachim von Ribbentrop that emigration no longer be seen as a sollution and that "A territorial Final Solution has thus become necessary." [Fleming, p. 44.] Not only did Heydrich change his mind about emmigration, he evebtually prohibited emiigration so that more Jews could be killed, referring to the "Final Sollution" (May 1941).

Prague, Vinobrady. Residential. Fafek family, Rela Fafek. Balbinova Street.

2010-07-24T14:16:00.004-04:00

1. Vinohrady, or Vinobrady

And the girlfriend of one of the Czech resistance fighters, Rela Fafek. The paratroopers who assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, known as the Butcher of Prague, were often guests of the Fafek family who lived in the Vinohrady District. See www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf/ See Heydrich and an account of the assassination plot at ://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERheydrich.htm/ Search that spelling as well as Heidrich, see ://archiv.radio.cz/history/history11.html

The Nazis were looking for Rela Fafek after the assassination.

Read the google book, Bodyguard of Lies: The Extraordinary True Story Behind D-Day, by Anthony Cave Brown, pages 223ff.

Find her role in the the assassination, and her role as girlfriend of one of the assassins, Joseph Gabcik (the other paratrooper assassin was Jan Kubis). The men were Czech, trained in Britain, and dropped into the area to accomplish the objective of killing Heydrich. Others were part of the group, waiting for them. It would be a spoiler to tell you what happens, other than that Heydrich did die. See the old "Operation Daybreak" - Hollywood's version, but a good one, considering, from the 1970's.

She was to drive ahead of the car in which Reinhard Heydrich was riding, and if he was unaccompanied by other guard cars, she was to wear a hat. If he was escorted, she would wear no hat. See ://books.google.com/books?id=Q0UBW_KysgMC&pg=PA224&lpg=PA224&dq=Rela+Fafek&source=bl&ots=lNBWZnDELv&sig=6WObrd0nyberokmOnttOQIyWfc0&hl=en&ei=3zxLTKTxD4H58AaCook0&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Rela%20Fafek&f=false/ Gabcik stepped out, aimed and fired, but his gun jammed. So Kubis threw a bomb, and shrapnel hit Heydrich, with blood poisoning and gangrene causing his death after a day or so.

2. Daily life.

On a more benign note, in this district, Petr helped put new school desks together. Page 36.

Friends, Milose or Milos. Friends, the Miloses, were moving to an apartment there. Page 66. It seems to be a residential area with an elegant background. See myczechrepublic.com/prague/sightseeing/vinohrady.html. See photo and description of solid pre-war apartments and wide boulevards at allpraha.com/?page=resourcedetail&category=100195&resource=20375&resourcename=Vinohrady

This site calls it "leafy Vinohrady," and notes good chicken wings there. See www.allpraha.com/?page=cat&category=100346&catname=Chicken%20Wings%20Tour.

From those images, move to Operation Anthropoid again. See post on Boromejsky Church here.

2. Balbinova Street.

Petr goes here to paint numbers at #18. Page 116. This is in Vinohrady, looks like apartments still.

Prague, Troja - Recreation Area; Operation Anthropoid

2010-07-24T14:06:00.003-04:00

Troja

1. Recreation. Here Petr and Eva (sister Chava Pressburger, who later edited the diary) got a boat ride. Page 28; or Petr would walk there with his friend, Popper. Page 44.

Once he and Eva were walking there, and she cried from the cold. Page 64. Petr seems never to talk about himself and his reactions, but does refer to others. Ms. Pressburger says that Troja is a suburb and Jews were allowed to go there. But Jews could only get there on the embankment of the Vltava River that was in the direction of Old Town. Page 143.

Troja still is a recreation area, with a zoo, garden and chateau. See abcprague.com/2006/04/12/to-visit-troja; and prague.net/troja-chateau. Do an Images search.

2. Troja and Operation Anthropoid.

Troja also is the name of the bridge at this suburb of Prague.

It was the place, at a "hairpin" curve near the bridge, where the Czech partisans attacked the Nazi official, Reinhard Heydrich (also spelled Reinhard Heidrich), and his ultimate death. This assassination led to the destruction of the town of Lidice, among other acts, in reprisal. See this video about him, at Reinhard Heydrich Waffen SS 1/5 at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV25qUZcZt8

See entry May 11, 2005 www.militaryphotos.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-15776.html; www.deathcamps.org/reinhard/heydrich.html;

See also here concerning the Boromejsky Church, the Orthodox Church of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, where the partisans, betrayed, were finally cornered and died.

Prague - Wilson's (Woodrow Wilson) Main Train Station, Other Train Stations

2010-07-24T14:00:00.001-04:00

Train Stations

Railroads: the targeted populations could not have been transported to the camps without them. Is that so? The perversions of technology.

1. Prague Main Train Station - Woodrow Wilson.

This is the train station where there is a commotion celebrating Hitler's 53rd birthday. Page 100. This was the occasion where the British-trained Czech resistance operatives (and others) carried out Operation Anthropoid that up the assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich. See a video of his funeral at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9P17nUoG0Q

This station is the main station for Prague, and is undergoing improvements. See /www.abcprague.com/2006/05/17/prague-main-station-will-be-strongly-changed. See also http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/russchid/06_craziness/1139001000/cimg3486.jpg/tpod.html

Is it named for Woodrow?? Yes. Woodrow Wilson was instrumental in severing the Czech lands from the Habsburgs in 1918. See hedgie.org/ma/me/consult/ansP/Train.php.

2. Hybernska Street.

Petr went to Mr. Repa's for glasses. Page 41. Ms. Pressburger says (I think this is correct) that this is now 146 Jachymova Street in the Old Town. Josefov, the Jewish Quarter. Page 146.

There is a train station at Hybernska, with German flags. Page 85.

3. Branik.

A German soldier was shot here. Page 110. From Images, Branik is a village, and the name of a Prague station, and a beer.

The station is in Prague 4, see www.livingprague.com/pragueareas.htm; and here is a nice night train picture: michaelkenna.net/html/books/nitework/branik.html.

4. Bubenec.

There is a train station here and Grandma is leaving from there. Page 119. Near Prague Castle area, embassies near?

Prague. Museum, Assassination of Reynhard Heydrich; The Occupation;

2010-07-24T13:04:00.001-04:00

The Czech Resistance Assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich

Exhibit, Boromejsky Church

Orthodox Church of St. Cyril and Methodius

Reinhard Heydrich assassination, Prague, Czech Resistance exhibit, Boromejsky Orthodox Church

Readers of Petr's Diary, who do not have a firm grounding in WWII history, may be misled by the reporter-type detached entries of Petr Ginz. His listing of the Occupation events can be bland.

For a more gut-level start in understanding what life was like and how it evolved under the Nazi regime and aided by Czech protectionists, look into this event as an example, and go deeper.

Find Operation Anthropoid, leading to the assassination of a high-ranking Nazi official, Reinhard Heydrich. He ordered the methodical deportation and death of tens of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, and others. See Gypsies, Roma - Holocaust. See a detailed chronology of the German occupation in Prague and the surrounding area, and photos, see http://www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf. "Assassination" refers to Operation Anthropoid, and includes events in the years preceding, and the reprisals afterwards, especially in Lidice, the town that was decimated.

This is an exhibit in the Boromejsky Orthodox Church (Orthodox Catholic, not Roman Catholic), also known as the Orthodox Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius (www.radio.cz/en/article/85056) where some of the partisans had been hidden by the priest. Then one of the partisans who had participated, but escaped, revealed their location to the Nazis apparently in hopes of saving his family from retribution, and the others were trapped there.

These events were scripted into a film in the 1970's, "Operation Daybreak," available on the internet. The copies are poor in audio - feel free to return for a better. There may be foreign language subtitles. Worth a remake, Hollywood.

Prague - Boromejsky Orthodox Church - Assassination, Reynhard Heydrich, reported by Petr Ginz: Obergroppenfuhrer Reinhard Heidrich

2010-07-24T11:24:00.003-04:00

The Orthodox Church of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, Prague

The Resistance Hid Here
after their Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Butcher of Prague

Petr Ginz followed the story as it unfolded.

Orthodox Church of St. Cyril and St. Methodius (Boromejsky) interior exhibit, WWII Czech resistance, assassination Reinhard Heydrich, Prague

The report unfolds in Petr's diary: In summary, with some of the factual statements in boldface, page cites, and explanations:

1. Hitler's 53rd Birthday: There was a "commotion" that Petr connects with Hacha's handing over to Reinhard Heydrich an ambulance train, Heydrich representing Hitler. Page 100.

Emil Hacha was President of the Republic. See him (and a detailed account of the assassination events, with news photographs including Hitler and Churchill, at www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf. Scroll down, or do a "find" for Hacha and other topics)

2. Then, on Wednesday, May 27, 1942, he records a "bomb assassination attempt against SS Gruppenfuhrer Heydrich." Then followed a state of emergency, curfew with all who are seen out and who do not stop being shot with his entire family, and a reward of ten million crowns for information. Page 108.

3. Thursday. At school, there is an announcement that "Heydrich's life is not in danger." Later, the loudspeakers announce the shooting of 8 people for "sheltering unregistered persons. Among them was a seventeen-year old boy." Page 108.

4. Friday through Monday. Word is out that someone named Valcik is being sought, reward 100,000 crowns, Petr sees a poster about another assassin, reward 10,000 crowns (how much was a crown?), "Forty-five people have been shot for publicly approving the assassination," and he family stops reading a certain magazine; increases in rewards, and exactly by whom and by how much; eighteen more shot for harboring unregistered persons, a Berlin event sparked
killing and deportation of total 500 Jews there.

This was Operation Anthropoid. Valcik was one of the lookouts watching for Heydrich to approach the Troja Bridge. See map at sw3d.mff.cuni.cz/consort/troja.htm. Sgt. Josef Valcik and Lt. Adolf Opalka. The other two were Sgt. Jan Kubis and Sgt. Josef Gabchik. Six allied-trained Czech assassins had parachuted in for the mission. Read a detailed account at www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1509938; and at the entry May 11, 2005 at www.militaryphotos.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-15776.html.

Read and see photos of the time in a historical overview - huge detail - at http://www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf. See Kubis and Gabcik, scroll down and read captions for them, or do a "find." Note to Hartford: Part of the equipment was a 38 Colt. Read about it at that site.

For more on Hartford, Connecticut's Colt Armaments Manufacturing Company, see World Wars I & II Sites, Hartford CT and Colt Firearms.

Here is a video about the Church and the assassination: at ://www.pravoslavnacirkev.cz/pamatnik/Heydrichiada.pdf
.

5. Tuesday through Thursday: Liben (see photos of this district now at prague.elfineer.cz/prague-districts/liben/) is closed off, Germans shot someone looking out a window, older girls taken and hair washed as they are looking for one who helped the assassins, more events in Berlin and another 500 Jews executed or transported, then finally flags to to half mast. "Heydrich probably died," so school is out and a new transport is to be called up, Page 110. Earlier, at page 47, Petr notes that 5000 people were sent to Poland in 5 transports (trains), so a single transport would mean about 1000 people?

One account has Gabchik's girlfriend keeping watch. www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1509938. Another names her as Rela Fafek, and has her signaling as she drives a car in front of that of Heydrich, by wearing a hat, that he is indeed in a car following and unescorted. See http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-15776.html.

6. Then, at page 114, he says that the assassins were caught at Bormomejsky Church,

The town of Lidice was flattened in reprisal. See the memorial to the children, and report at www.zchor.org/lidice1.htm

The parachutists had landed near Lidice. See .everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1509938

..................................

The Church:

The Orthodox Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius is known as the Boromejsky Church. Boromejsky was Karel Boromejsky, a Roman Catholic priest, elevated to Archbishop of Prague, and then a Cardinal. He died in 1941. See www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bkaspar.html.

Escaping from the Nazis looking for the assassins of Reinhard Heydrich the paratroopers went to safe houses, then finally to this Church.

The Church is now a museum, with exhibits showing the events surrounding and following the assassination of Nazi second in command to Hitler, Reinhard Heydrich.

Enter down the stairs to the crypt below street level.

Boromejsky Orthodox Church is also known more familiarly as St. Cyril's Church, a shorthand. The comment below correctly points out that this is an Orthodox Church, not Roman Catholic, and its full name is Orthodox Church of St. Cyril and Methodius. The comment notes that only the Orthodox Christians stood up to the Nazis.

We need to find out more about the relationship of the Boromejsky name, a Roman Catholic Cardinal, see below, and this older designation. Are both or were both used simultaneously?

Reynhard Heidrich (Heydrich) - the Butcher of Prague. His policies led to the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews and Gypsies, see Gypsies, Roma: the Holocaust, and others.

Boromejsky Church, Saints Cyril and Methodius. Those are the saints who originally converted the people in this region to Christianity, and before there was a division between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic interpretations, see http://www.radio.cz/en/article/85056).

Here, Orthodox priests hid the remaining members of a partisan-allied assassination squad, who had killed Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich. They were finally cornered here. See the news articles and displays. And the film, "Operation Daybreak," 1075-76. Some spellings say Heidrich, but those are probably incorrect.

Safe Houses in Wartime:

Map, showing safe houses, Prague, Czech Resistance WWII, Orthodox Church of St. Cyril and Methodius

The map in this area shows where the safe houses were, where fugitives could hope to find shelter. The reprisals against the helpers were horrendous, and the overall event led to the massacre at Lidice, see www.lidice-memorial.cz/book_en.aspx, that soft-pedals; and then www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-lidice.htm that photos the real hardball.

Prague. Streets; Squares, Miscellaneous Towns

2010-07-24T03:38:00.001-04:00

Streets of Prague
Squares Mentioned in Diary of Petr Ginz

Shorter reference
Miscellany - in passing

Prague is visual riches. Facades vary, there is ornamentation on street lamps, doorways, windows. Its streets are livable: narrow enough to walk across easily, but traffic still flows reasonably. As in much of Europe, older buildings are perhaps 4-5 stories tall, no more. This is a typical street in Prague.

Prague street; ornamentation. Places of Petr Ginz

Petr writes of many streets and many addresses of specific people; or his sister, Chava Pressburger includes them in her portions of the book.

Get an idea of the varied days of Petr Ginz, a child of the city. Think of a panoramic camera, slowly moving about, filming the boy as he goes.

Smaller references - references to streets and squares with a longer history are listed separately

21 Norimberska Street

This is the location of the legal department of the Jewish community. Page 16. There is a Norymberska restaurant in Cracow, but I see no other reference to the word.

Veletrh in Prague VII (the district) opposite Vinarska Street.

This remains a puzzle. Page 20. We see Czech references to Veletrh; and Vinarska seems to be in the town of Brno?

Jachimova Street, Josevof, Old Town (Jewish Quarter)

The Statnii Zidovske Museum is at Jachimova 3, see www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/e-europe/czech-p.html.

Chava Pressburger's notes suggest that this is the new name for Regnart Street? Page 146. Ms. Chessburger is Peter Ginz' sister, the editor of his diary.

Regnart Street.

Regnart was a composer and musician in the court of Rudolf II. Page 146. [See statue, "Iron Man," supposed to be Rudolf II, Czech Republic Road Ways . See more on Regnart at www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Regnart-Jacob.htm. We see no Regnart Street.

Letenska Street.

Petr goes here to register for school. Page 44. Used to be Belcredi's Avenue? Page 46. Do an Images search for this one - and a regular search shows the Wallenstein Gardens there, see www.gardenvisit.com/ge/wallen.htm, and we missed that. The Wallenstein Palace now houses the Czech Republic Senate. Belcredi: We see a hotel Belcredi, but not a street.

Kelly's Street.

The Germans changed the name from U stare skoly. Page 87. See U Stare skoly 3 as the address of the Jewish Museum, Robert Guttman Gallery, at www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/aexhibition.htm.

Krivoklat.

Uncles go to work by way of the motorway there, get 1000 crowns a month and can visit home. See 99. A splendid castle is here. See www.czech.cz/en/culture/most-beautiful-sights-and-places-of-interest/castles-and-chateaux/krivoklat/. Do an Images search as well. We did not get there. See also ://www.czechtourism.com/eng/uk/docs/what-to-see/castles-chateaux/all/krivoklat/

Fair use thumbnail of Krivoklat Castle from ://www.mestokladno.cz/EN/vismo/dokumenty2.asp?id_org=100977&p1=1032&id=1017

Suchdol. It takes a tram and a bus to get here. Page 121. Near airport? University near here? Park and greenery, impressions from Images and overview of real estate sites.

Lodecka Street. They are removing postal horses (?) Page 122. This seems to be Prague 1, Josefov or the Jewish Quarter?

Prague. Where Jews Cannot Walk. Prikopy; Narodny Ave.

2010-07-24T03:22:00.002-04:00

Places of no access for Jews

Prikopy.

Jews are not allowed to walk here. Page 110. This now is the pedestrian way at the lower end of Wenceslas Square. See www.radio.cz/en/article/60725. A place for shopping, and you can choose a walking tour focusing on that. See www.accommodation.cz/t/sight.html

Narodny Avenue.

Jews cannot walk here, either. Page 111. Take a long detour to a tunnel that goes under it in order to get places. Page 114. Fast forward to August 15, 1969, and the "human barricade of Czech militia" at Narodny Street. Read back at the struggles 1938 against Nazis, 1948 against soviet union, and 1968ff again. Young's Prague Story at http://www.stanfordalumni.org/travelswithrico/42PragueYoungB.htm.

Prague, Petrske Square

2010-07-24T03:08:00.003-04:00

Petrske Square.

Petr goes there to say goodbye to friends being transported to Theresienstadt. Page 100. Transport to Terezin - same. Terezin is the Czech name for the German Theresienstadt.

It looks like an area of shops and restaurants. Do an Images search for Petrske Street, and find the map that shows also how close Dlouha Street is, above.

Prague, Lublanska Street. Jewish hospital. Bulovska Hospital

2010-07-24T02:56:00.003-04:00

Lublanska Street.

The Jewish hospital, that treated Petr's father, and where doctors removed "...three litres of water from Daddy's lungs!" writes Petr. Page 85.

A violin-maker also is there, a master craftsman and restorer, www.housle-vavra.cz/en/history.php, still in business since 1870 despite all. See the family faces and talent shown there. Also Earth Day celebrations. See /archiv.radio.cz/listings/fest.html

Bulovka. A second hospital? Is this for non-Jews?

Petr goes with Auntie Anda across the ferry and under the cliff under Bulovka. Page 96. We find a town Bulovka in the Liberec area, north-northwest CZ.

Here it is - a hospital, Hospital Bulovka in Prague. www.prague-info.cz/en/prague/addresses/bulovka_hospital_pharmacy

Petr's mother was Christian, his father Jewish. If Auntie Anda is his mother's sister, then as a Christian she would go to a different hospital fro the Jews?

Prague. Vezenska Street - Gestapo; and Jewish Ambulatory Clinic

2010-07-24T02:47:00.000-04:00

Vezenska Street.

There was a "pub the Gestapo chased people out and into a van." Page 48.

A Jewish ambulatory clinic was also there. Page 86. Looks like this is still a victuals place, also hotels.

Prague. Klimentska Street

2010-07-24T02:44:00.002-04:00

Klimentska Street.

Peter goes here early to help Mr. Emil Bondy * with his luggage for his forced transport to Poland. Petr needed a pass: curfew for Jews until 6 AM. Page 45. Here it is: down from Stefanik's Bridge - www.mapy.cz/searchScreen?query=ulice%20Klimentska,%20Praha.

From the websites, it appears to be a residential street. See a picture and fine narrative article - human interest - at www.radio.cz/en/article/75954/limit, "A Window in Klimentska Street," by Linda Mastalier, February 19, 2006. Shorthand customs for recording dates: We would write month-day-year 2/19/06. Europe writes day-month-year 19/2/06.

........................................................................

* Yad Vashem record, Emil Bondy: Perished. See these public records at ://www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal Note that his spouse is "Anda". Is that Petr's Auntie Anda?

"Full Record Details for Bondi Emil

Source		Pages of Testimony
Last Name		BONDI
First Name		EMIL
Father's First Name		BERNARD
Mother's First Name		ZOFIA
Mother's First Name		SOFIA
Gender		Male
Date of Birth		16/05/1889
Age		53
Place of Birth		PRAHA,PRAHA HLAVNI MESTO,BOHEMIA,CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Marital Status		MARRIED
Spouse's First Name		ANDA
Spouse's First Name		ANNA
Spouse's First Name		ANA
Permanent residence		PRAHA,PRAHA HLAVNI MESTO,BOHEMIA,CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Profession		MERCHANT
Place during the war		LODZ,LODZ,LODZ,POLAND
Place of Death		LODZ,LODZ,LODZ,POLAND
Date of Death		03/05/1942
Type of material		Page of Testimony
Submitter's Last Name		BONDI
Submitter's First Name		RUT
Relationship to victim		NEPHEW"

Prague: Hagibor Club, Sports, Social, Political

2010-07-24T02:01:00.002-04:00

Hagibor.

This sounds like a skating area, see Page 57. Rather, it is a larger enterprise - a sports club, sponsoring track and skating - see Hagibor Club at www.jewishsports.net/historical_view.htm.

Site summaries: After WWI, many Jewish sports clubs emerged, with an umbrella organization, the Maccabi World Union. It goal was stated this way,

"The goal of the Union is the physical and moral regeneration of Jews for the sake of restoration and existence of the Jewish lands and people."

They also held social and cultural events. Hagibor was one of the clubs fostering activities of the MWU.

Maninsky Canal.

Skating - a favorite activity. Petr writes that the Maninsky canal was frozen and good for skating. Page 40. Haven't found yet. See Meninsky, but as a surname, not a canal.

Prague: Podskalska Street

2010-07-24T01:56:00.002-04:00

Podskalska Street.

Friends sublet an apartment there at number 22. Page 56.

Libri Prohibiti: During the Nazi and Communist years, writers continued to create and publish underground literature. These are displayed and preserved in a Prague second-floor downtown apartment. The original location of the Library of Prohibited Books was Podskalska Street; now it is at Senovazne. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libri_Prohibiti. See also bol.praguepost.com/categories/93/2673/. See also ://www.kontakt.erstegroup.net/report/stories/Libri+Prohibiti/en

Libraries have a long and distinguished history in Czech lands, beginning with the 9th Century. Societies, castles, towns, monasteries. See the Czech Library and Information Portal, History of Libraries in the Czech Republic, at ://knihovnam.nkp.cz/english/sekce.php3?page=05_History.htm&PHPSESSID=4d3a4a7b5879ed2ca11802f0c8878362. The Strahov Library, in the Strahov Monastery near Prague Castle, houses collections dating from the 12th Century, but with materials predating that by centuries, is open to the public but materials do not circulate, see ://www.prague.cz/strahov-library/. Stay in the Hall and read.

During the Nazi Occupation, 1939-1945, books with democratic or progressive themes that did not support the political ideology were removed, and Fascist materials fostered. In 1945, with liberation, libraries again stocked shelves with the previously forbidden materials. Then the shift back again: There was a continuing limit on availability of topics during the Communist years. There was a strict censorship by 1970. And, in 1989, with the "Velvet Revolution", libraries again displayed a wide range of subject matter. See the History of Libraries site at ://knihovnam.nkp.cz/english/sekce.php3?page=06_Transf.htm&PHPSESSID=4d3a4a7b5879ed2ca11802f0c8878362/

The Library faces Gorky Square, and this article gives the flavor of it, its history and vibes - findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n8_v57/ai_13201825; also libpro.cts.cuni.cz/clan32.htm

Library buffs may like a summer program in Prague, see ://sils.unc.edu/programs/international/SamplePragueSchedule.pdf

Prague: Holesovice - Petr's Home; Petrin Hill; Stefanik's Bridge; Strossmayer Square

2010-07-24T01:00:00.002-04:00

PETRIN HILL, STEFANIK'S BRIDGE

Prague, Petrin Hill, Stefanik's Bridge, Vltava River, CZ

This Prague view looks across the Charles Bridge toward Petrin Hill. Petrin Hill has a network of parks near Prague Castle. See photos here: www.pragueholiday.cz/fotogal/galery.php?d=0; and at www.prague.net/gallery/petrin-hill/.

Home. Petr lived near the Prague central slaughterhouse, near Petrin Hill (page 15), and I think this is in the Holesovice area. See his sister's notes at page 144. Not clear here on how close it is to Petrin? Here is more on Holesovice: /www.pragueholiday.cz/holesovice.php.

FILM. There is a 1975-76 film about Nazi resistance in the Czech Republic, the assassination of Ubergroppenfuhrer Reynhard Heydrich, "Operation Daybreak." The film says that the assassination attack took place at Holesovice, and there is substantial footage about it. See Places of Petr Ginz, "Operation Daybreak". The operation was called Operation Anthropoid in reality, and triggered that terrible retribution in the Nazi destruction of the entire town of Lidvice.

Holesovice had been an agricultural area, then incorporated into Prague as its 7th District. It expanded with factories, and further with the Masaryk railroad station being connected to other lines.

Strossmayer Place. At 92 Strossmayer Place, he watched a bell being taken from its tower. See post on the bells. The name looks like an honor to Bishop Strossmayer, who in 1870 gave a speech at the Vatican that did not support infallibility and such issues. See www.mtc.org/bishop_s.html. He was Croatian. See Croatia Road Ways, posts about Bishop Strossmayer.

Stefanik Bridge.

This was called the "hanging bridge" I think because it was a suspension bridge, not for any executions. It was soon closed to pedestrians. Page 49. Search Images search to see it.

Milan Rastilav Stefanik was a co-founder of Czechoslovakia in 1917-1918. See www.radio.cz/en/article/68765 and a fine history and map at www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWczech.htm.

Czechoslovakia later divided into The Czech Republic and Slovakia. There is a Cardinal Stepinak in Croatia who is controversial for his conversion of the Orthodox in the concentration camps prior to their executions, instead of standing in the way of the executions, but I don't think the reference here is to him. For Stepinak, see Croatia Road Ways, Zagreb entries on Cardinal Stepinac and Jasenovac Concentration Camp entry.

Prague, Dlouha Avenue - Property Administration, Book Depository

2010-07-23T22:04:00.002-04:00

Dlouha Avenue

This street is called (writes Petr) the "Milky Way" because of all the sheriffs there. Page 28.

The Central Jewish Museum was there, and administrators there processed the property of Jews being deported. Nazi property administration. The Reich collected a portion of assets in some cases, in exchange for small living stipend, or required that the person being transported to the camps pay his or her own way, made certain items of clothing (the warm ones) forbidden, and the like. See the account of Rosa Abeles' situation at Czech Republic Road Ways, Pilsner-Urquell, Rosa Abeles.

The book depository was at Dlouha Avenue 33 in Prague. By the end of 1949, there were nearly 480,000 books there. The employees sometimes organized exhibits of the different property for the Nazis. See www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/aexhibition.htm, under the bold-faced heading for "Central Jewish Museum 1942-1945."

A handy maplet is at an Images search for another street, Petrske Street. It shows Dlouha better than the one here. Petr mentioned Petrske Square, below.

Prague - Veletrzni Palace, Exhibition Grounds, Holesovice

2010-07-23T22:01:00.005-04:00

Veletrzni Palace

This was a large palace with courtyard used as a transit stop and holding place for collecting people to send to the ghettoes and concentration camps. People had to go to get on the transports out to Theresienstadt or Poland. Page 19.

Jews stayed there 5 days before transport, sleeping on sawdust sacks (that people helped fill) Page 35. The modern picture of Veletrzni, the "Trade Fair Palace," does not look like a 1940's building. See www.prague.net/veletrzni-palace. No wonder. The old one burned down in 1974. See lava.ds.arch.tue.nl/GAlLery/PraHA/tmoma.html. I am looking for a photo of the old one.

Exhibition Grounds.

Grandmother. Petr writes that his grandmother's tenants have to report there to be transported to Poland, Petr's father was also called up, but was ill and got a reprieve, Pages 11, 69, 111; Petr's grandmother went there and got notice of when she was to be transported as well.

What happened to the Grandmother: Yad Vashem lists several Ginz family members who could be the Grandmother. Anna, born 1894, and Berta, born 1867, The surname, however, is Ginzova, and is that a feminine form of Ginz, or is she not in the list. See yadvashem.org. for the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names, Shoah meaning Holocaust.

Ms. Pressburger says at page 145 that this palace area had been build in the 1920's for trade fairs. Is this the same as the "exhibition grounds?" See information on the exibition grounds at section hh here.

Friends Bardach. The Bardach's whole family was called up there for Theresienstadt; and Petr's grandmother ultimately also had to go. Pages 69, 70, 111, 116.

"The Final Solution": At the Yad Vashem site, click on "final solution" for a narrative of Nazi policy in exterminating Jews.

There are many Bardach's in the Yad Vashem Database. A page of testimony signifies that someone submitted information as to a missing person, or known other facts, such as the death. The list of inmates for the destination ghetto or camp would supply confirmation of death. There are not always records, as the database is incomplete and some deaths were not recorded.

For each victim, there is also a narrative summary, and the viewer can click to the more complete record. For Frieda Bardach, for example: "Frieda Bardach nee Scheinhaut was born in Tarnopol to Avraham. She was a housewife and married to Yosef. Prior to WWII she lived in Praha, Czechoslovakia. During the war she was in Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia. Frieda perished in the Shoah. This information is based on a Page of Testimony (displayed on left) submitted by her son."

Public record, Sample Summary page of persons with same surname, same town.

At the Yad Vashem site, click on the name to find further details.

BARDACH SURNAME, PRAGUE
An entire family, says Petr, was transported.
What were their names. It is time to remember.
Which of these Bardach surnames are the friends of Petr's family we do not know.
Even so, remember them all.

Information only, no death notice,

person missing or records not yet transcribed.

Reinhold Bardach,
Margit Bardach,
Pinkhas Bardach,
Shalon Bardach,
Meir Bardach

Death notice as well as information:

Bedrich Bardach,
Felix Bardach,
Hermann Bardach,
Valtr Bardach,
Josef Bardach,
Karel Bardach,
Valtr Bardach
Khaim Bardach
Frieda Bardach

This list may not be completely accurate, done hastily, so do a search at the Yad Vashem dot org for each one.

Holesovice

The palace, we think, is is in Holesovice, where I believe Petr lived. See www.pragueholiday.cz/holesovice.php.; and www.radio.cz/en/issue/93800. See this big trade fair place at www.prague.net/prague-exhibition-ground.

The Exhibition Grounds were built for a centennial in 1891, and are in the "picturesque basin" called Troja. See photo and information at .travel.cz/guide/597/index_en.html. See s. "d" above. It is also identified as in "Vystaviste." See tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g274707-d590468-Reviews-Vystaviste_Prague_Exhibition_Grounds-Prague_Bohemia.html

Prague, Josefovka Street - Typewriter Repair, Jewish Quarter

2010-07-23T21:55:00.003-04:00

7 Josefovka Street - Josefov Street

Petr worked at a typewriter repair shop here. Page 17.

Josefov is the old Jewish Quarter. See the Old-New Synagogue there at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/CzechRepublic/Prague/Josefov/OldNew.html. I find the street, but no special news. The best approach is to do your own Images search for Josefov Street - see many angles on the Jewish Quarter.

Prague, Jungmannovo Square - A Grandfather's Antique Shop Was There

2010-07-23T21:46:00.002-04:00

Jungmannovo Square

A grandfather had an antiques shop there. Page 7. There is a cubist streetlight post near an interesting old-looking gate. See www.guide-prague.cz/gallery/ten-centuries-architecture-gui/42. There are still antique auction houses in the area. www.papilio.cz/en/archiv.php?PHPSESSID=ef2b762053d61ab3bd32a06d2a8cd73b.

Jungmannovo, Square, is named in honor of one Josef Jungmann, a lexicographer and scholar. The word for square is Namesti. See it in click-and-drag panorama at ://www.360cities.net/image/jungmannovo-namesti#-1081.31,-90.00,70.0/. He translated Paradise Lost and constructed a huge Czech-German dictionary, see ://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/308271/Josef-Jungmann

Which of these might be Petr's Grandfather? Without knowing the family members, we do not know, but a quick look at birthdates may narrow. The Yad Vashem site - do a search for victims at http://www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Welcome - gives helpful information, and shows that records can vary.

Yad Vashem lists these persons with the surname Ginz, in addition to Petr:

Emil Ginz born 1899 (testimony page), and then Emil Ginz born 1898 (record shows transported to Theresienstadt, then perished at Auschwitz),

Pavel Ginz born 1927 (near Petr's age), transported to Theresienstadt, perished at Auschwitz

Viktor Ginz born 1892, transported to Theresienstadt, perished at Auschwitz

Prague, St. Vitus' Cathedral, view to the Little Quarter,

2010-07-23T04:34:00.004-04:00

Prague, The Little Quarter, Places of Petr Ginz

The photographs. Parts of Petr's world.

Here is a view of Prague that Petr would have seen often: toward the section known as the Little Quarter, looking at St. Vitus Cathedral up the hill. Petr writes of the huge bell at St. Vitus Cathedral, the bell named Zikmund. See Diary at p. 94.

Site navigating - Places of Petr Ginz.

2010-04-01T11:19:00.004-04:00

1. The "Places" - Click on label "places"

For this topic, find photographs and comment, Prague, Hradec Kralove, Plzen, Sudetenland area, Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, and Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, where he died.

2. The "Lens and Legacy" - Click on label "lens and legacy"

For commentary, find photographs and comment on his writing, his era, other child diarists of the time, further background.

Lens and Legacy. Family and Community. Hradec Kralove. Vignettes

2008-12-25T22:46:00.008-05:00

Petr Ginz' Family
Community

See him here, at ://www.life.com/image/1728184/

He lives with his parents and sister in Prague. Petr usually lists and inventories events objectively, but he also offers vignettes, short description of family life, and colorful happenings.

Hradec Kralove, CZ, birthplace of mother of Petr Ginz

1. Mother. Time off.

Petr writes at Page 53 that his mother left for Hradec (RandR, but -- as in any family where mom takes some sudden RandR --left inadequate instructions on what the family was to cook. Petr says they will manage.

No wonder she wanted to to back to Hradec, for a breather. There it is. Orderly, beautiful, historic.

2. The designer turkey.

Peter writes at Page 72. Fair use quote-

"I heard that some local people wanted to kill a turkey, but they felt sad for it and didn't want to just cut its throat so they gave it to [sic] Veronal, plucked it, and put it in water. But then the dear turkey woke up and because it was cold without feathers, they knitted a sweater for it, and it now walks around in a sweater.***"

[Veronal, or barbitol, is apparently a central nervous system depressant, also used in veterinary medicine, see cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?Veronal]

3. The prolific lungs.

Peter writes of his father at page 86, at the Jewish ambulatory hospital (I believe) in Prague. Fair use quote:

"They removed three litres of water from Daddy's lungs! They dragged some containers to him, lots of doctors came running, even the chief doctor Klein himself, and the puncture was one quite painlessly. They asked him: Shall we make it a full three litres?

"Daddy told them: 'Do help yourselves.' "

So read the diary carefully. There are nuggets there, amid the cool, detached event inventories.

Sgraffito at Hradec Kralove, CZ

Sgraffito is a technique of wall ornamentation. A darker layer if plaster is applied; then a lighter shade. Before the top layer dries, it is etched off, showing the darker beneath. Pictures, designs, fool-the-eye patterns. Hradec Kralove was and is an elegant town visually.

4. Grandma's house

Vojtesska Street.

Family: Grandma. Grandma's house, at number 12. Page 67. This is in the Old Town. Do an Images search and up come all the apartments for rent or places for sale. You can even see the fine old building at number 22, just a few buildings away from Petr's Grandma's address at number 12.

Prague - Jewish Quarter, Dusni Synagogue now Prague Maharal, Institute

2008-12-15T12:02:00.003-05:00

DUSNI SYNAGOGUE
The Spanish Synagogue

Evolution of a Synagogue
.

Update to Petr Ginz post October 1, 2008 - The old Dusni Synagogue appears to now be the Prague Maharal, an Institute promoting the life, personality and legacy of Rabbi Judah Loew, 1525-1609, renowned religious scholar. See photograph and article at ://www.praguemonitor.com/en/426/prague_news/28216/. The Institute will also train new rabbis.

Prague, Dusni Synagogue, Spanish Synagogue, now Prague Maharal Institute

Read an article on "The Legacy of Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague" online, by Byron L. Sherwin, European Judaism vol 34, 2001 at Questia, see ://www.questia.com/PM.qst;jsessionid=LrXGGpCP1Yp3VDkkhJl2CyVLGK3L458VV2vtmMBgMcwLpNVsYdTy!243734?a=o&d=5002422218

The photograph is the same as the building we were told was the old Dusni Synagogue.

Rabbi Loew became known to us in reading "The Seventh Well," by death camp survivor Fred Wander (book translated 2006, see "The Seventh Well".

See a shorter biography at ://www.ou.org/pardes/bios/maharal.htm

He created a fictitious Golem, a man-figure from earth, air, fire, and water, through ritual, an image through which the community could be rid of various evil accusations made against them by the Christians surrounding. The Golum served well, even with an invisibility function. When finally the laws and evil practices were changed, the Rabbi de-made (?) the Golem, and the legend lives in many respects. Read the legend, edited by D.L.Ashliman, at ://www.pitt.edu/~dash/golem.html

Prague. The Silence of the Bells. St. Vitus; Church of our Lady Before Tyn

2008-12-12T16:42:00.001-05:00

The Fate of Prague's Bells
Except for Zikmund

Prague, Charles Bridge, view toward St. Vitus Cathedral

1. The bells are taken.

Petr writes: "*** You can't hear any bells ringing at all, because the Germans have confiscated them all; they will probably make cannons out of them. They left only Sikmund of St. Vitus and that's the only church bell in Prague now." Diary at 94.

There, on the hill, are the towers of St. Vitus, across the Charles Bridge that spans the Vltava River, at Prague Castle.

Petr watched the numbers rise: first, 82-100. Page 92. At least 2000 bells later, filling the Maniny sewer.

Prague, Cathedral of Our Lady Before Tyn

At page 95, Peter records that they were taking the bell out of Tyn Cathedral, shown here, and he watched how they removed the bells from 92 Strossmayer Place.

The bell at the Cathedral of Our Lady Before Tyn, shown here at the Old Square, was not spared.

See the history of this Cathedral at www.pragueexperience.com/places.asp?PlaceID=595; and prague.net/church-of-our-lady-before-the-tyn.

.
2. But Zikmund is spared.

Page 97. the Zikmund Bell and St. Vitus in photos at www.prague.net/gallery/st-vitus-cathedral/. Scroll down to the last row for the bell.

No wonder the fate of Bell Zikmund was important to Petr and Prague. It is the biggest bell in Prague, and maybe the Czech Republic, and was made in 1549. See www.prague.net/st-vitus-cathedral. At that site, click on the"South Side" paragraph, and then on Zikmund to see a close-up of the bell.

This site - with much history in it - says that it is the largest bell in Central Europe, and weighs 16 tons. See prague.tv/articles/zine/brokenheart. Rename it Tennessee Ern?

A summary history is at www.prague.net/bell-tower, including legends: with a princess, Wenceslas and more. Silencing it means national tragedy.

In 2002, the clapper broke, and sure enough terrible floods came. Others saw the broken clapper as related to the outcome of recent elections, where the Communist party gained. Read about the break and repair at www.radio.cz/en/article/32859.

The name "Zikmund," by which the huge bell at St. Vitus is known, is said to mean "guardian of the victory" in the Czech language, and is of German origin. See www.behindthename.com/submit/view.php?name=zikmund. Was it saved from destruction by the Germans by its germanic name? Or just because it was humungous?
Petr says at page 95 that the bells were dumped at Maniny, and this area was finally one of the only places that Jews were allowed to walk. See page 103. This is a sewer-landfill area. He says the sewer was filling up there. Page 63. Search in Images for Maniny to see how it looks today, and for a map.

Prague. The Vltava River Runs Through It

2008-09-29T20:55:00.000-04:00

THE VLTAVA RIVER, PRAGUE

Charles Bridge, over the Vltava River, Prague, Czech Republic

The Vltava River divides Prague's Old Town and Jewish Quarter, from the Little Quarter, and the Prague Castle-St.Vitus Cathedral sections. The Charles Bridge, with its saints on both sides, connects them again.

Petr describes the "pleasant murmur of the weir," weir being an area of an overflow spillway, to raise or lower water levels and make a river navigable, or suitable for millraces. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weir. Here is Prague's old mill race area.

Prague, Vltava River, Old Mill Race area

Page 57: Petr says the Vltava is partly frozen. Here are the big ice breakers that protect the bulwarks of the Charles Bridge.

Vltava River, Prague, icebreakers at bulwarks, CZ

The Vltava floods often, and markers show the high water marks through the years.

Vltava River, Prague, flood high-water markers

When the levels are low enough, you can see them.

Petr writes: "*** The water in the river is far below the normal level, so from the embankment you can see the stairs to the lower river bank, from the lower bank to the edge of the bulwardm and five steps of the ladder below." Page 88. There is the flood marker now. In 2002, the floods were over the top.

Petr Ginz hears that loose ice is floating on the river. Page 92.

Ice breakers at bulwarks, Vltava River Charles Bridge, Prague

We used this photo before to show the saints. Look this time at the ice breakers.

And, finally at one point the river is overflowing, but Petr sees a ferry crossing with 30 people on board. Page 95.

We enjoyed a short river cruise on a little roofed boat instead. Did we mention that they gave a big cup of beer and a snack to all on board who wanted to celebrate the river?

Prague. The Jewish Quarter, Josefov, Dusni Synagogue

2008-09-29T09:23:00.000-04:00

Places from the Jewish Quarter, FN 1, in the Diary:

1. Dusni Synagogue (Spanish Synagogue). Petr writes that at Dusni Synagogue, German vans were moving equipment out of the building, and Jews were in working clothes (doing the work?) Page 49.

This is a photo of the Spanish Synagogue on Dusni Street, built in 1868 in Moorish style. www.thetravelzine.com/ejht6.htm. It is an "ornate Sephardi shul." See www.dailyjews.com/articles/237_prague_s_jewish_year.htm. Read about synagogues, as a start, at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogue

There has been a synagogue on this site since the 12th Century. The Spanish Jews who worshipped here early on, moved to Holland and others altered it to meet their needs. In 1836, it became a Reformed place of worship. See ://www.pragueeventscalendar.cz/en/sights/spanish-synagogue-prague-1229

2. Norimberska Street(?). The legal department of the Jewish community was at Norimberska Street. Page 16. We could not find the street.

3. Josefovka Street. Petr works in a typewriter repair shop at Josefovka Street. Page 17. Josefov is the Jewish Quarter, See www.pragueexperience.com/places.asp?PlaceID=597. Josefovka Street was named after the enlightened Joseph II who gave civil rights to the Jews in the 18th century. He also built the garrison at Terezin - Theresienstadt, that later, ironically, served as their step to the death camps. http://www.scrapbookpages.com/CzechRepublic/Prague/Josefov/JosefovHistory.html.

3. Smichov Synagogue. Petr went with his grandmother to Smichov Synagogue. Page 29. In 1941, it was closed and the Nazis used it to house confiscated Jewish property. In the 1950's, it was a warehouse. It was returned to the Jewish Community after the fall of communism, 199-94. The building has been largely reconstructed now, and will house a study and bookstore, but will not serve as a synagogue. See www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/asmichov.htm.

This was not an upscale neighborhood. Adjectives for it at the time include grimy, sordid, and factories smoke-belching. See www.radio.cz/en/article/39803/limit.

4. Lublanska Street. The Jewish hospital was at Lublanska Street. Page 85. We find no hospital there now. There was an Earth Day celebration on Lublanska Street, /archiv.radio.cz/listings/fest.html, and violin-makers, www.housle-vavra.cz/en/history.php; and hotelsgardensteashops.
.................................................................................................................................

FN 1
The Jewish Quarter has a long history. See www.scrapbookpages.com/CzechRepublic/Prague/Josefov/JosefovHistory.html; and more photos and comments at Czech Republic Road Ways, Jewish Quarter posts. There may be some 5000-6000 in the Jewish Community there now. See www.prague.cz/prague-jewish-town.asp.

Prague - Charles Bridge. Meet the saints.

2008-09-29T08:23:00.000-04:00

Petr Ginz and the Charles Bridge, The Vltava River, The Saints

As would anyone in Prague, Petr crossed the Charles Bridge. Page 46.

Charles Bridge, Prague

This old bridge was begun in 1357, and finished in 1402. Floods had damaged the earlier Judith Bridge, in 1342.

See the history of the bridge at monuments.guide-to-prague.be/charles-bridge.php http://www.remunda.com/travel/review/prague_monuments.html. Scroll down to the Bridge section. Also see www.myczechrepublic.com/prague/sightseeing/charles_bridge.html

On both sides of the bridge, you will meet the saints, including Wenceslas.

Saint, Charles Bridge, Prague

See them all at lava.ds.arch.tue.nl/gallery/praha/tcharles.html/ YouTube also has videos of the bridge and what happens there.

It is a pedestrian bridge now (was it then?) and that leads to creative use of space by musicians and artists and caricature sketchers.*

This fellow is a one-man-band with an umbrella over his head to keep his instrumentation dry, and may or may not be a saint.

Charles Bridge, Prague, musician

From the Charles Bridge, looking toward Petrin Hill.

Petrin Hill, from Charles Bridge, Prague

Then, there is a view from one of the tourist boats that scoots around the bulwarks, and cruises down the river.

Charles Bridge, Prague, from river

The most spectacular views of the city, either side, are from the bridge.
.................................................................................
* Panhandling. Some on the bridge creatively handle pans. See www.unm.edu/~dave/words/panhandler.html.

I set some change in the pavement cap of an individual looking in particular misery crumpled on a dirty blanket. He suddenly revived, with a friendly grin and a distinctly American thank you. And, even more suddenly, the ragged, mittened stump at the end of his forearm showed distinct finger wriggling inside the mitten. Free enterprise worldwide. Gotta love it.

However, on another occasion, with a bona fide person in need elsewhere in the city, not a trafficked tourist area, his eyes and his gratitude and disbelief that anyone would actually offer to get him through the day, are with me still. Nobody's govt, that leaves healthcare up to the profit-makers, is doing the job broad-based.

Sudetenland - Cheb, and Ostroh Castle, at the German border

2008-09-28T09:55:00.002-04:00

The Sudetenland

Petr writes that a Sudeten German, a railwayman, wanted an overcoat. Page 36. Clothing was being requisitioned for the Nazis, and individuals were left with little. This area is near the German border, and has been the site of conflict for centuries - and shifting borders. It is a gateway from the northwest into this area known as Sudetenland, annexed by Hitler in 1938.

Here is Cheb, about six miles from the German border. See more about the town and its castle at Czech Republic Road Ways, Cheb, our more complete site on the Czech Republic.

Half-timbered houses, Cheb, Sudetenland, CZ

The half-timbered houses in Cheb date from the middle ages, and were those of German merchants from that time. There were centuries of ethnic group commingling between what is now Germany and the Czech Republic - boundaries were fluid.

See the walls leaning out, with the weight of the years.

The Savage Man fountain statue:

This is one of two apparent Rolands at the square, but it gets confusing.

This one, the Savage Man, with the club at fountain #1, is to the side, and
The other, a Knight, is more in the center square, at a well-fountain.

It is not clear to us yet why such different representations, and if they are each "Roland." See them side by side at ://www.tic.mestocheb.cz/EN/vismo/dokumenty2.asp?id_org=100427&id=709354&p1=26920/ It gets confusing how the Savage Man relates to the very kinght-like Knight Roland at fountain #2. The knight stands for Cheb's freedom. Knight Roland apparently symbolized the market privileges that were given to some towns, see www.mestocheb.cz/html/e_pamatky.htm/

See also the link to the Czech Republic for details.

It looks like the wild man represents the ferocious german tribes at the time of Charlemagne (800AD or so); and the Knight with the Unbreakable Sword represents the legend that grew up with Roland as champion of the newly emerging independence of cities against the nobility. Roland may have been Charlemagne's nephew, or just an officer.

Savage Man Fountain, Statue, Cheb, Sudetenland, Czech Republic

So, there are two fountains that claim Roland: this one looking more like Hercules with the club; and another, at "Roland's Well" in the center square, more knightlike, with a sword.

The knight with spear - or is it this one? - is a copy of the 1591 original kept in the Cheb Museum - and is (we are told) the Knight Roland.

But is the Roland of the market privileges, the same as Roland, the nephew of Charlemagne? This makes sense if we see the Savage as Germany of old, and the Knight as the legendary protector.

The time frames seem different. Charlemagne was, crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800; but the rise of market towns and freedom came later.

The historical (with legends) Roland was retreating from a campaign against the Muslims in Spain, Battle of Ronceveaux, where he died at the hands of rebellious Basques.

Read the Song of Roland. See a teacher's guide to Roland and all this at novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/eng251/rolandstudy.htm. Go in front of your own hall mirror and declaim out loud, emoting to the max, the poetry from the Song of Roland, excerpts there. Now. Louder. Gesticulate. Yes.

There is another Knight Roland statue in Bratislava, Slovakia; and we understand there is one in Bremen, Germany. He got places.

Castle at Cheb.

Ostroh Castle (Seeburg): The Black Tower here dates from original Roman fortifications. The rest stems from Slavic settlements in later centuries.

Black Tower, Ostroh Castle (Seeburg), Cheb, Czech Republic

Read a fine history at ://private-tours.net/ch_main.cgi/country_tour/number_71/index.htm?m-opt=12/, but the black background and yellow lettering is dizzying. The castle is called Ostroh (Seeburg) there.

The castle was built in the 12th Century, by the Holy Roman Emperor Barbarossa. A gamer's view of Barbarossa, and a succinct summary of his campaigns, is at pc.ign.com/articles/069/069876p1.html. Its old tower, is known as the "Black Tower." I believe I saw somewhere that it dates from Roman times. The overall style is Romanesque, but that does not mean "Roman." See Romanesque at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesque_architecture.

There had been a Slavic settlement there from the 9th-11th centuries. There is a rare Gothic-Roman chapel there. See www.mestocheb.cz/html/e_pamatky.htm.

Wall, Ostroh Castle (Seeburg), Cheb, Czech Republic

Part of the east wall dates from Roman times.

Sudetenland, as with many areas populated by moving ethnic groups in centuries past, is considered by those later displaced by others to be their home even in "exile." Passions and the pendulum of rectitude swing - and run high among some today to "return" Sudetenland to Germany, although others would say that Slavs were there before Germans, and Romans before that, and etc.

After WWII there was a population exchange, Germans were evicted-pushed back behind German borders as then defined, and given harsher terms such as "cleansing" by some, then again others say should there be no consequence to what Germany did.... and etc. again. See sudetengermans.freeyellow.com/.

At that site, scroll down to the historical map and see the variable borders as historical events and religions and military efforts moved them. The forced movement of ethnic groups in the aftermath of WWII is still an issue - see http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/sginferno/sgi00.html.

For a super site for medieval civilizations, history, migrations, boundary shifts through the centuries as the three major groups - Muslims, Orthodox-Byzantine-Eastern Christians and Roman Catholic-Western Christians and murder each other. Take an entire morning at www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/lecture_mid_civ.htm. Bookmark it now. Please.

Sudetanland. Cheb's Aga. History through History's Ashes. What is Left Out?

2008-09-27T20:41:00.002-04:00

The Sudetenland - And Tiled Stoves

Cheb's Tiled Stove

Petr mentions that someone who is a friend of the family was from this Saxon (Germanic) area, near the German border. At Ostroh Castle (Seeburg) at Cheb, see a fine example of Europe's old tiled stoves. These were connected to ductwork carrying heat to other rooms, in many instances. This stove is at the Castle at Cheb, in the Sudetenland, western Czech Republic.

Cheb CZ, Tiled Stove

The castle is essentially a ruin, but was built in the 12th Century by Barbarossa and has a Black Tower made of volcanic stone, see http://www.planetware.com/cheb/castle-cz-ka-cc.htm/ See it all at ://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Burg_Eger/
This is how houses were heated.

An Aga, of sorts.

Like the old stove here, is this true:

True that all the world's events go into the hopper, and come out ashes. But those ashes are prodded and sifted by those who come after, and some lumps are discarded as though they never were. Other lumps are reused in a new form to suit the user, and some just powder away. Grayed, charred stuff to show that something once was there. But what do we really know of history from ashes.

We attempt here to put some visual form back on the ashes of the life of Petr Ginz. History would have been part of his life because he saw it - we get it in books.

Did Petr see these in old Czech castles, large homes. History's ashes. Preserve and sift.

Neveklov, in Beneslov District

2008-09-26T02:32:00.001-04:00

Neveklov.

Neveklov is a town now known for its biking. Go to this site and watch the little blue ball make its peppy way around the Nevoklov2 route, some 60 plus kms for mountainbiking, on the map. All for you. See://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=293707. Here is a video of the area - ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amTv9QavZrw

Its history, however, is traumatic. Petr goes here to help other people move, including Aryans, to make room for Germans. Page 96.

Here is the Neveklov coat of arms, symbols of two castle towers, shield between,. www.ngw.nl/int/cze/n/neveklov.htm. Fair use thumbnail from ://www.ngw.nl/int/cze/n/neveklov.htm

Do an Images search and find it on the map from Prague, and photos of the synagogue there, and one appears to be housed at the Jewish Museum in Prague. See the museum site at www.jewishmuseum.cz/aindex.htm

Dobris, Town South of Prague. Benesov

2008-09-26T02:14:00.001-04:00

1. Dobris.

Fiser from Benesov was sent to Dobris. Dobris is a town south of Prague, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dob%C5%99%C3%AD%C5%A1. Then Fiser came back, writes Petr, and had to register at Tabor. Fiser later said he has to leave for Theresienstadt.

We see no "Fiser" in the Yad Vashem database, but Fiser may be "Fischer" and there are many of those; two are from Benesov or the district of Benesov, one died at Auschwitz, another is on a deportation list, no further information, but neither is recorded in Theersienstadt. We found no Fiser or Fischer Y for Dobris.

Pages 95-97.

Dobris has a castle, do an Images search for Dobris and see it. It is French Baroque, fine photo here, http://www.zamky-hrady.cz/1/dobris-e.htm. Tabor -a "Hussite town." See old.tabor.cz/1ja/index.htm.

The name stems from Jan Hus, was a reformer against the abuses of the Catholic Church long before Martin Luther took similar stands in Germany, see Germany Road Ways, Wittenberg posts. The Hussites in the now Czech Republic were defeated by 1437.

Jan Hus, Reformer, statue at Theresienstadt (Terezin)

Here is Jan Hus the Reformer, as he stands at Terezin - Theresienstadt, where Fiser the confectioner was to be sent, Diary at Pages 95-97.

2. Benesov.

Fiser the Confectioner lived here, and was taken. Page 95.

Fiser from Benesov.

Benesov is a district in central Czech Republic, the area of Central Bohemia, see ://www.travel.cz/guide/75/index_en.html, with historic castles, fortresses and a monastery complex. That site is useful for its side menu of links to named sections of the Czech Republic, and the main cities there.

Benesov was part of this mega-bicycle route all over Europe, see www.geocities.com/glenn_ord/bikeguide.html#CzechRepublic. There also is a "Konopiste (Benesov)" that is a castle about an hour away, and available as a venue for weddings, see photo and article at www.allpraha.com/?page=resourcedetail&category=100072&resource=20429&resourcename=Konopiste%20(Benesov)

Lens and Legacy: Comparing Anne Frank. Emoting in Diaries

2008-08-28T17:09:00.002-04:00

Child Diarists

Anne Frank

Hollandsche Schouwburg, Jewish processing center, Amsterdam

Jewish experience in the Netherlands. See ://www.kennesaw.edu/holocaustmemorials/amsterdam.shtml.
Another diarist there. The Diary of Anne Frank. See The Netherlands Road Ways.

How diarists differ.

1. Anne Frank's work is more introspective, as she identifies and examines feelings, reactions, notes them in others, watches, responds, despairs. Petr Ginz records, but there are few windows into his heart - for whatever reason, is it like many boys. He gathers data, lays it out, does what needs to be done in a more objective way.

2. Anne's experience during her long period in hiding was remote - she did not experience daily the herdings of Jews into this theatre structure in Amsterdam, for example, where Jews and others were processed before being sent to the camps. Anne Frank would have come here in all likelihood, only after her time in hiding where she wrote her diary, when the family was betrayed and captured.

We are used to Anne Frank's introspection, after years of exposure to her situation, words and the films about it.

Some may want to see the same kind of despair, emotional reaction, in any stress diary. In the Diary of Petr Ginz, we learn that Petr did have emotional reactions - read his sister's introduction.

But a diarist writing about emotion must take time and energy to do that. In the middle of ongoing crises, merely getting by takes the time and energy someone otherwise could expend on introspection. Anne Frank emoted, but she was in a position to indulge: she wrote from a unique viewpoint, in hiding, with nothing to do during her silent and fearful days with the same people, except introspect.

3. Now read another war-child's viewpoint, Petr Ginz, the practical and informative, from out there. Just the difference of boy vs. girl? Maybe. Read and see. Do some research on that.

When it comes to learning about WWII, many already have Amsterdam's girl imprinted in mind and heart. Now travel to Prague for another. And the library. There are more perspectives in many other diaries as well - keep going.

4. Anne Frank in Yad Vashem's records: yadvashem.org

Full Record Details for Frank Anne

Source		Pages of Testimony
Last Name		FRANK
First Name		ANNE
First Name		ANNELIESE
First Name		MARIE
Father's First Name		OTTO
Mother's First Name		EDITH
Mother's Maiden Name		HOLLAENDER
Gender		Female
Date of Birth		12/06/1929
Age		15
Place of Birth		FRANKFURT MAIN,WIESBADEN,HESSE-NASSAU,GERMANY
Marital Status		CHILD
Permanent residence		AMSTERDAM,NOORDHOLLAND,THE NETHERLANDS
Place during the war		AMSTERDAM,NOORDHOLLAND,THE NETHERLANDS
Place of Death		BERGEN BELSEN,Camp
Date of Death		03/1945
Type of material		Page of Testimony
Submitter's Last Name		FRANK
Submitter's First Name		ELFRIEDE
Relationship to victim		FATHER'S WIFE

Lens and Legacy: Finding Others Who Wrote War and Occupation Diaries; Museums, Other Voices

2008-08-28T16:56:00.001-04:00

Petr Ginz and other War Diarists

Slovakia, Bojnice Castle

War pocks.

Bullet holes on buildings. Still throughout much of Europe. Here, at Bojnice, Slovakia, see ://www.castles.info/slovakia/bojnice/.

We are interested in the lives of people who lived through or during those conditions. Here is an overview of their voices from their diaries, and where you might find them:

1. Berlin: the Jewish Museum. Voices.

At this exhibit, the voices of people are heard symbolically, becoming audible through the action of your own feet in stepping through the clanking iron representing them; in an exhibit offering a long corridor (this is a participation museum), where the end not visible. It is an artwork, called "Shalechet," or "Fallen Leaves," see ://www.jmberlin.de/site/EN/01-Exhibitions/07-Contemporary-Art/01-Menashe-Kadishman/kadishman.php/. Do an Images search for "Fallen Leaves" - one is there.

Step in, start down the windowless hall, and suddenly become aware of the clink and shuffle, louder as you get echoes, as you step on and over and through piles of iron heavy rings-circles, with openings for different facial expressions, down and down that long corridor that increases the clanging sound. Some people kick one or two, then look around to see if anyone noticed. And duck out, disoriented.

We humans are frightening in how we follow a leader. Start with a tiptoe or slide, so carefully. Then see how, if some in the exhibit is quiet, everybody stops at once, or if one gets loud, others do. The sounds. The voices clang even sigh if you go softly. Amazing. See Germany Road Ways.

2. Diaries - For long link addresses here, open another internet window, copy enough of the address to get you to the home page at each site, then maneuver until you get to the inner site.

2.1. Overview. "Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust," by Alexandra Zapruder, see the Google book at books.google.com/books?id=kc6S1bDM-m0C&dq=alexandra+zapruder&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=Se-otHEex2&sig=gP67fAuA8TN7nxxxxGXFmjMADNM#PPR9,M1
and selections at www.facinghistorycampus.org/campus/reslib.nsf/9C48089E651A99E2852570CF00529F40/$File/Salvaged+Pages.pdf

Read about Alexandra Zabruder at teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwii/interview/index.asp

2.2. The Netherlands: "Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943," Introduction by J.G.Gaarlandt, translated by Arnold J. Pomerans, Triad-Panther 1983; now in Google book form at books.google.com/books?id=UaMquRjHwcAC&dq=etty+hillesum&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=BEWWkm1OS1&sig=fcUoeY7J2uZ4Bo2Vhc6qO4L7Daw

Etty Hillesum was in her 20's when she wrote. The material contains some adult-oriented matters. She died in Auschwitz in 1943, was born in 1915. See also "An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum," 1941-1943, see http://creativequotations.com/one/291.htm for some quotations. I am not sure if the content of these listed books differ.

Frank - already well known. A search for her name brings up her diary also from Amsterdam. See The Netherlands Road Ways, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum.

2.3. Serbia. "Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo," 1991-1993 by Zlata Filipovic, who was about 11 at the time that she wrote. See monarch.gsu.edu/jcrampton/bosnia/people/zlata.

2.4. Czech Republic (in addition to those included in #1) Eva Ginzova, the birth name of Petr Ginz' sister, now Chava Pressburger. See www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/27/diary_ed3_.php. She includes entries from her own diary in "The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942."

2.5. Czech Republic - other work by Petr Ginz: Read "Mad Augustus" at www.sharat.co.il/teaclub/liter/august-e.htm

2. 6. Rutka's Notebook, Poland. See Poland Road Ways, Rutka's Notebook

Electronic diaries, current wars and occupations - so many. Search for more. Put in the country or territory, and "war diary."

Lens and Legacy. Child diarists, Petr Ginz and Anne Frank; Others

2008-08-28T10:31:00.003-04:00

Petr Ginz and the Circumstances of Other WWII Young Diarists

Petr lived on the outside, in his neighborhood in the city, not in hiding, but moving about Prague during the occupation.

St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, from Charles Bridge

He knew he would be sent to the ghetto at Terezin, a/k/a Theresienstadt at the age of 14, as a Mischling. That was a policy postponement of several years, because he was not a full-blooded Jew, but a Mischling.

See post dated 8/7/07 for "Mischling," the category of mixed Jewish and Aryan, that carried with it some dispensations, but only those of delay - not reprieve.

He lived under a clock ticking, and he knew where he would be sent. And he had a life to live in the meanwhile, out there.

From the diary, his life was in a varied, constantly changing city, with a large population, old buildings, family and friends, Nazis, tradition and history, constant reminders and sights and stimulation of many kinds for a child, including brutal reprisals in news. I do not believe he saw people shot, but the word spread.

Child and adult war diarists. See Europe Road Ways: Themes and Common Threads.

Anne Frank

Anne Frank was in another world. Ask what difference do the surroundings make to someone keeping a diary.

Anne Frank and Petr Ginz were in the same war, but Anne had nothing to "do," except look inwards and at a limited area and limited number of people; while Petr was in the midst of city, family, visible and experienced occupation events, all the time. That may well be the cultural view of girls as more verbal, introspective, reflective, and boys out doing. Still, Petr also was introspective, as shown by his art and fiction - if he had been in an attic for several years, his diary may well have been less matter-of-fact.

Here was Anne Frank's world - hidden inside and up a concealed staircase, no movement or sounds allowed during the day:.

Anne Frank house, Amsterdam NL

Imagine the days of Anne Frank: confined, in hiding, on tiptoe, fearful, only one window high up for daylight in her room,and only changing leaves and the branches of a tree across the canal to see. Even that tree is being cut down now. See history1900s.about.com/b/a/256911.htm.

There is the door to her father's office and business, in a narrow row-building warehouse. *The Annex, behind a secret way and up hidden stairs, is behind, and extends at the top. See www.annefrank.com/1_life.htm.

The same few people, little change, day after day. She wrote from the inside, of herself and the few rooms they all occupied. Her prose may soar at times, but how much of that reflects the lack of other stimulation? She could concentrate on her feelings - what else was there to do.

Back to original question: How much of a writing style depends on the enrichment of the surroundings, on distraction and lack of it. Or is style a reflection seriously of gender, with the girls looking inward and the boys figuring out how things work, and the bell-shaped curve on that; or just plain human difference in perspective, regardless of gender or distraction.

Likely: Petr's reporting style, succinct, factual, looks like a shorthand of someone whose days and head were full of daily confronting the uncontrollable. A wry detachment makes sense. A way of controlling at least how and what was recorded. A way to sanity.

Petr Ginz died at Auschwitz, after a period of time at Theresienstadt. Anne Frank died at Bergen-Belsen, after a period of time at Auschwitz.

Place. Plzen - Pilzen - Pilsen: The English bombs; role in Anthropoid

2008-08-27T20:07:00.000-04:00

Petr says of Plzen (spelled Pilsen there) that the English dropped some bombs there. Page 102.
The bombs did not hit the Great Synagogue, the third largest Jewish house of prayer in the world.

Plzen was home to a thriving Jewish Community then. See a video of the interior of this Synagogue at /info.plzen-city.cz/virtualniprohlidky/czech/java/e1366.html;. There is further information at www.sacred-destinations.com/czech-republic/plzen-great-synagogue.htm.

The only larger Jewish sacred buildings are the Jerusalem and Budapest synagogues. See the Budapest synagogue when I get the Budapest blog going. It will be at a seed blog pending more on Hungary: Hungary (Budapest) Road Ways, Budapest post.

Plzen's 1892 synagogue here can seat 3000, but the size of the Jewish community is about 100. The effects of WWII remain devastating. See www.isjm.org/jhr/nos3-4/pilsen.htm.

Visitors are given little paper yarmulkes at the entrance, where you leave your contribution. Read about yarmulkes at /www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Kippah.html. Make your own from this one, just make it bigger. It is snipped opened here, to fit it flat. Fold it over and staple. If your heritage is different, say Christian, then hang the paper yarmulke next to your holiday stockings or on the tree in remembrance.

Plzen is south-west of Prague, and is also known for the brew we call "Pilsner." Try Pilsner Urquell in particular. www.realbeer.com/nmvbp/urquell.htm. We did not take the brewery tour, because time was short, and we did not want to require a nap after samples before heading into Prague.

In the square is a fine Marian column, or plague column as they are known - those 1715-1750 or so petitions in stone to deliver us from the pestilence, or in thanks for such deliverance. See info.plzen-city.cz/article.asp?sec=132.
And, next to town hall, is Cisarsky dum, a Renaissance building with a fine fellow from 1606. Emperor Rudolph II was here.

Rudolph II.

Rudolph II apparently is the "Iron Man" of the statue in Prague, who does not seem at all bothered by "sin" in trysting with a Jewish woman, but she is devastated (dead??),so the story goes, lying draped at his feet. See www.remunda.com/travel/review/prague_monuments.html; and post at Czech Republic Road Ways.

Pilzen was the only place we saw with a monument to America's WWII liberations, saying on the monument "Thank you, America." Patton was in charge, see www.radio.cz/en/article/65642; see Patton's grave at Luxembourg Road Ways, Hamm Military Cemetery post and other Patton posts.

Wreath report. Very few. And this just a day or so after the anniversary celebrating Patton's tanks. No anti-American graffiti or demonstrations, but we are off the respect pedestals of the mind. No automatic renewals.

Plzen also played a role in Operation Anthropoid, in which Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Nazi official, was assassinated by Czech partisans in Prague. See historical overview - huge detail - at http://www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf. A State Secret Police inspector, Vaclav Kral, gave the password "Adina greets Pilsen. March 8 is good." Scroll down this long site for it, or do a find for Vaclav Kral

Hradec Kralove, relief from the pressure cooker

2008-08-27T19:47:00.000-04:00

Hradec Kralove
Petr Ginz'
Mother's Home Town

Do not sleep in a hotel room with the view of the clock tower. Bong throughout. Or bring earplugs, as we do.

Hradec Kralove, Square, Places of Petr Ginz

Hradec. In the diary, relatives and geese come from Hradec. Petr's sister writes of the relatives at Page 7. Petr writes of Uncle Jarka D arriving from Hradec. Page 5.

Petr's mother was from Hradec. Pages 7, 5.

Petr's family got a nice goose from Hradec, Page 49.

They received another goose of 7 kilo, with so many kg of lard and 20 kg of livers. Page 49. Petr is precise, even about innards.

Hradec also was respite. Petr's mother left for Hradec at one point, and notes that she was "not precise" in what the family was to cook in her absence. Petr says they will manage. Page 53.

As of page 56, they were expecting another goose from Hradec. At another point, I recall that the mother feared that two geese coming would spoil, so she gave one away.

Here it is - the main square, with the clock tower that has the hands reversed (I believe it was Rick Steves whose guidebook pointed that out, and he is right).

See this walking tour at www.kralovehradecko-info.cz/en/atraktivity/hradec-kralove/prochazkovy-okruh-1.php.

Hradec Kralove CZ, Plague Column, Places of Petr Ginz

The Marian plague column, erected with Mary at the top in thanksgiving for deliverance from the Plague, and beseeching no return of it, dates from the late 1700's. The pestilence recurred over the centuries. Plague columns appear in many towns in Europe: Learn about Plague Columns with a general start with Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_and_Holy_Trinity_columns. They are in most every town square.

Plague: Read about the link between climate change at the time and the epidemics at www.springerlink.com/content/tk7431410785766j/.

Sgraffito, Hradec Kralove residence, facade, CZ

Hradec would be a welcome respite from the Occupation in Prague: peaceful, historic, beauty around.

Buildings at Hradec Kralove are sometimes decorated with sgraffito, a painting technique where one color plaster or other preliminary surface is the base coat, and another color plaster or other surface on top. Scrape the top layer and reveal the lower. www.britannica.com/eb/article-9067031/sgraffito.

See also the Hradec Kralove post at Czech Republic Road Ways.

This example is on a historic home just off the square at the town of Hradec Kralove, the town where Petr's mother was raised. Her family continued to live in Hradec Kralove (address not known) during the War.

Ceska Lipa, Bohemian Town

2008-08-22T13:24:00.000-04:00

Ceska Lipa.

Petr writes that Karel Mautner was sent to work there, his other relatives at Theresienstadt or Poland, he came back looking stronger, but had to go back. Pages 46,49-50.

Ceska Lipa is in Bohemia, read its history athttp://www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/e-europe/czech-c.html. This site describes all the Jewish cemeteries, towns' histories, present condition, much information. See Ceska Lipa (originated in 1th century) also at english.mucl.cz/. Here is a photo gallery. /www.pbase.com/ianm_au/cesky_lipa.

Bohemians in our culture? A different connotation and look at it here - ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism. The concept came from Bohemia, part of the Czech Republic.

Poland in Petr Ginz' Diary: Zikmund the Bell; Transports to Camps

2008-08-22T10:46:00.000-04:00

Tracing Zikmund the Bell

A Polish Heritage in Prague

And who was Zikmund, in whose name the bell at St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague continued to toll, even after the other bells of the city had been confiscated for war materiel by the Germans.

Zikmund the Bell was too large to get it down and move it, much less melt it easily.

The bell and its sound is part of the Polish heritage in Prague, as well as part of the Poland to which Petr and so many he knew were transported.

The bell was named after Zikmund, a king of Hungary, and the brother of Wenceslas V, who in those days when borders ebbed and flowed took over Brno and other areas. Read more at eagle.webstep.net/index.php/public/page.php?lang=en&list=true&pgid=37. Scroll down to "Middle Ages", and then to 1349-1421.

Need to check if this is the same Wenceslas killed by a brother Boleslaw in Cesky Krumlov. www.ckrumlov.cz/uk/mesto/soucas/t_svvasl.htm. See Czech Republic Road Ways.

Warsaw PL, Zikmund Statue in Polish Square
.
Photo alert: this is in Poland, not the Czech Republic. Zikmund is highly regarded in Warsaw, Poland. Look up.
.
More. Up.

There.

But Poland is part of Petr's life and death as well.

Petr mentions Poland, sometimes as an alternate destination for Jews being transported out of Prague, or the known destination.
.
Page 45 - Transports to Poland stop, now going to work at Theresienstadt. Helping at Mr. Emil Bondy's with luggage, he is going to Poland;

Page 46 - Some 5000 have gone already to Poland in 5 transports;
.
Page 65: Poles being interned at Theresienstadt as well as French, non-Jews.

And Petr is sent there, to Poland's Auschwitz - Osweicim, where he dies.

Poland. The Destination from Veletrzni.

2008-08-22T08:25:00.000-04:00

Going to Poland

The Transports

Petr writes that people go to Poland after five days at Veletrzni. Veletrzni is the old Trade Fair Palace, a large space where people came for processing and stayed until moved out. See ://www.prague.net/veletrzni-palace/.

Names of concentration camps are not given in Petr's references. Here is a directory of all of them,the camps, their use at the time, their status now. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/major_camps.html.

You will probably not find Auschwitz, on a Polish map, or Theresienstadt on a Czech map. You will find the national language translation, not the German: Osweicim PL or Terezin CZ, the camp reflecting now the language of the country itself, not the earlier invader. Try many spellings.

Terezin. Theresienstadt. "Way to Heaven", Stage play

2008-08-21T07:49:00.000-04:00

Terezin, Theresienstadt, emerging Arts theme
.

The Nazis used Terezin as a kind of stage, on which they set up a sham settlement of happy-looking, well-fed adults and children.
.
Petr Ginz was kept at Terezin for several years before being sent to Auschwitz-Berkenaum, to his death. We do not know if the Red Cross inspections noted here occurred while he was there. Terezin is the Czech name for the German Theresienstadt concentration camp.
.
The Nazis used those fake well-being tableaus and scenes to convince Red Cross workers and other inspectors in WWII that the place was benign, with scenes to show how independent and fully functioning this community of the displaced were.
.

See this as the them of a new play, at Czech Republic Road Ways, Terezin on Stage, "Way to Heaven," by the Spanish Juan Mayorga.
.

The play is now in New York City, with alternate evenings offering the performance in Spanish.
.

There was also an inmates orchestra, with works from that era now on programs in the United States and elsewhere. See Czech Republic Road Ways. Brundibar and Music of Terezin.

Theresienstadt, Terezin . School, ghetto children, Petr as a Child Artist: "Moonscape" by Petr Ginz, also science fiction buff

2008-08-16T12:37:00.003-04:00

Petr Ginz drew a moonscape. He was artistic, and a science fiction writer. See Petr's drawing, and see how the Israeli astronaut took on the Shuttle Columbia in 2003 - at www.intergate.com/~canu/art/art4feb/01ginz.html. The astronaut is Colonel Ilan Ramon.
.
See the entries for January 1, 2005 at collectspace.com/ubb/Forum20/HTML/000158.html.
.
Theresienstadt (Terezin) Memorial, School at ghetto, Petr Ginz life
.
The photo is the now-museum at Terezin, and I believe it is also the building where the school was held (Theresienstadt in German)

Terezin was set up as a "town" to show Red Cross and others that life was fine. Meanwhile, the transports went in and out and 30,000 died.
See post on Theresienstadt used as a facade by the Nazis to satisfy inspectors; while carrying on the transports and causing the deaths.

For the drawing, search Images your own computer for it. See www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/aginz.htm. That site also notes that his drawings were saved by a friend and are at the Yad Vashem Art Museum in Jerusalem.

Petr's friend survived. Kurt Kotouc was that friend at Terezin, and he says that Petr was killed immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. He discusses "Moonscape" and Petr at www.radio.cz/en/article/37257.

I think the entry is mistaken in stating that the drawing was made at Auschwitz. Other sources say he made it at Theresienstadt, see Kurt Kotouc, his friend, who survived. See www.radio.cz/en/article/37256.

In terms of copyright, is it fair use to put it here for you, as a tiny tiny part of someone's work? Nobody can tell me for sure what is fair use or not, so cut and paste the address, beginning at the beginning and adding as much as is needed to get your there. Or, see it at this site: www.greatestjeneration.com/archives/000899.php.

Theresienstadt, Terezin: Transports of Jews in; out. Trains, names,

2008-08-15T20:22:00.002-04:00

See Terezin, its old walls now even more overgrown. Get an idea of how Terezin figured more and more desperately in everyday life.

Here is a chronology of the people being sent out according to the Diary of Petr Ginz, and a picture of the siding at Theresienstadt where the trains loaded and unloaded. There at the barrier is a ledge where pebbles are left in remembrance. See the Jewish Mourning Guide, customs for Remembrance: Grave Visitation, at ://www.jewish-mourning-guide.com/tradition/grave-visitations.htm/

Petr wrote this chronology of the people being sent there:

Page 45. The transports (trains) to Poland stop. Now people are being sent to work in Theresienstadt.

Page 46. The names of so many sent to Theresienstadt.

Page 47. Transports stopped at least to January 10.

Page 48. The entire Mautner family is now at Theresienstadt. The mother, who would not leave without the last son, finally volunteered with that son and went to Theresienstadt

Pages 49-50. But Karl Mautner was sent to work at Ceska Lipa, all relatives at Theresienstadt or Poland.

Page 65. There are new transports to Theresienstadt, many with people the Ginz family knew
Peter hears that the Germans are also interning French, Poles, others who were foreigners and not Jews. Eight understood to be killed trying to escape.

Page 66. The Goldmanns from Budyne leaving for Theresienstadt.

Page 70. Bardach's whole family is called up. First to the "exhibition grounds," then to Theresienstadt.

Page 86. The Kuchner famiy got a letter from Leo in Theresienstadt, and he said they were healthy. He could only send 30 words.

Page 95. Fiser the confectioner was taken, and sent to "Dobris."

Page 96. Auntie Anda wanted to visit a friend, but the friend was already at Theresienstadt. Tabor leaves for Theresienstadt in May.

Page 99. Petr's teacher leaves for Theresienstadt.

Page 100. Friends leaving for Theresienstadt. "The Friedlanders are supposed to go too, even though Mr. Friedlander just had a stroke."

Page 102. Petr's father's doctor, Dr. Bloch, is leaving for Theresienstadt. "There have been two transports, one after another." And, "Ivan Dusner from our class is leaving for Theresienstadt."

Page 118. Grandma got her notice that she was leaving for Theresienstadt on Thursday.

Page 119. Grandma leaves from Bubenec Station.

What did the transports look like?

Theresienstadt was manipulated to the outside to look like a mere forced-population town, see www.unc.edu/~intrm/miriamintrator.pdf. That cite " to a Master's thesis by Miriam Intrator at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Scroll down to the history of Theresienstadt section. With that, the trains probably were not the crammed cattle cars used at other concentration-extermination camps such as Jasenovac in Croatia - see Croatia Road Ways.

These sound instead like regular trains leaving the stations in Prague and going the short distance to Theresienstadt. People even had their luggage. Petr helped Mr. Emil Bondy with his. Page 45.

Terezin - an excellent additional resource is http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/terezintoc.html. That overall site lists all the concentration camps and their use then and status now.

Theresienstadt, Terezin. A Child's Life; Bunkmates; Vedem

2008-08-15T13:23:00.003-04:00

TWO YEARS AT TEREZIN

Petr was at Terezin for two years, until he was about 14. He lived in barracks, and went to school there. He drew the barracks and his bunk area, and the drawings survived. See www.intergate.com/~canu/art/art4feb/01ginz.html. This had been a military barracks area, and a military base, a walled town since the 17th Century, see http://www.scrapbookpages.com/czechrepublic/theresienstadt/theresienstadtghetto/history/TheresienstadtHistory.html/. See its more recent history at ://www.scrapbookpages.com/czechrepublic/theresienstadt/theresienstadtghetto/history/GhettoHistory.html

Theresienstadt (Terezin) Ghetto, Czech Republic, barracks

Barracks at Terezin now look like this. This may or may not be the actual children's barracks, as they look alike lining the street grids right to the sidewalks. This had been an old garrison town, and was converted to a ghetto.

Look up the book, "I Never Saw Another Butterfly," a collection of art and poems by children who passed through or died at Terezin. Check for Petr's name.

Petr drew "Moonscape" there. The original was destroyed when the shuttle broke apart. A commemorative stamp shows the picture. See entry at January 20, 2005 at www.collectspace.com/archive/archive-0105.html . Some of the art is at the museum in Prague, in the Jewish Quarter. See seewww.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1998-no-frames/another-butterfly.htm,

Petr had bunkmates - Kurt Kotouc (name not found at Yad Vashem list because he survived) and George Brady (name not found at Yad Vashem list).

They put out a secret magazine, called Vedem. Kurt Kotouc survived, and kept some issues. Read his interview as an adult survivor at www.centropa.org/downloads/CZ_Kotouc_A4.pdf?PHPSESSID=8b1971337a11092e24da636b60890e0c.

Find boys' work, and a list of other book and research resources for helping children understand the Holocaust, at www.jewishlibraries.org/ajlweb/resources/bib_bank/Hana'sSuitcaseResourceList.pdf. Read an excerpt from the boys' newspaper at www.holocaustandhumanity.org/chhe_vedem_8.html.
Frank Laubach (www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=43) used to say, "Each one teach one." In important ways, a secret newspaper is a rebellion and an education tool.

There was a library also at Terezin, a school (see the book of the children's art and poems, "I Never Saw Another Butterfly," some of the originals at the Jewish Museum, Jewish Quarter Prague.

Theresienstadt, Terezin. The Deadly Charade

2008-08-15T08:11:00.003-04:00

How Theresienstadt - Terezin Passed "Inspection"

How could a ghetto-concentration camp have a school, a library, prayer rooms.

Read "Avenues of Intellectual Resistance In The Ghetto Theresienstadt: Escape Through the Ghetto Central Library, Reading, Story-Telling, and Lecturing."

Memorial to Terezin, Theresienstadt, Jewish Quarter, Prague

This paper is by Miriam Intrator in April 200, written for a Master's Degree course in Library Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Go to www.unc.edu/~intrm/miriamintrator.pdf.

Parts of Terezin were staged as a fraud on the Red Cross inspectors, who saw nothing of the ultimately 30,000 who died here over time, and saw only that Jews were housed here, away from Aryans, and life was ok. They saw a fake. A facade.

See how musicians and composers at Terezin appeared not only at Terezin, but in propaganda films. A children's opera, Brundibar, was a favorite. See Czech Republic Road Ways, Brundibar and the Music of Terezin.

The memorial is at the Jewish Quarter in Prague.

Petr Ginz lived for two years at Terezin, Theresienstadt. See those and other facts listed at Factbites, ://www.factbites.com/topics/Petr-Ginz/

Theresienstadt, Terezin - Ghetto - Overview.

2008-08-15T07:36:00.003-04:00

History of Theresienstadt, Terezin Ghetto

Theresienstadt (Terezin) Old Garrison Town, CZ

Theresienstadt, or Terezin as it appears in Czech, was an old garrison town with angled, star-shaped wall configurations now overgrown, that had also served as a prison. See http://www.deathcamps.org/reinhard/terezin.html.

The Nazis converted it into a ghetto to hold Jews pending their further disposition; in that way, Petr Ginz came to be imprisoned there; it was in truth a concentration camp, and tens of thousands died, and even more were transported from there to other concentration camps, for labor or extermination.

Petr was transported here when he was about 14, and lived here for 2 years. Many children were brought here. The camp had a schooling area, and other parts of the camp at one point were set up to look like a reasonable place for Jews to be brought and held. The "excess" Jews were deported fast, and the area was shown off as just another ghetto to the Red Cross and other inspectors during World War II. It was theatred and it worked. The inspectors went away. See the entry at the deathcamps site above, and scroll down to near the photo of the prison cells for that event.

The trains apparently came to this siding for loading and loading.

You can see the piles of stones for remembrance that visitors leave there.

Theresienstadt (Terezin) Railroad halt point, discharge of cars

And to the side, up a ways, is a place hidden behind corrugated tin fencing and barbed wire as I recall, but you can see inside.

Put your camera in and there are deep pens or cave areas in the walls, with heavy grids.

Theresienstadt, Terezin. Holding areas, deep recesses in walls

The term "ghetto" is Italian, from the Jewish section in Venice from the 1500's. Later, the word described the areas where Germans concentrated the Jewish populationand forced them to live under miserable conditions...." See www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005059. It was a means of "control and segregation" pending further steps that often led to labor or extermination camps. Here is a "Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust": fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/ghettos.htmThe town has a population, and some businesses are coming back.

Terezin, Theresienstadt Ghetto, barracks

The old barracks are there, and some are being renovated.

Terezin, Theresienstadt. Garrison town grid streets, storehouses, many being lived in

There is a museum, and other buildings are identified as the school, the places for prayer, and other matters needed for an ongoing "town" of Jewish people.

The streets are in a military-type grid, there are parade grounds and even homes now, but even those echo the past. There are the guns, still facing inside, and right in the windows - see the trajectory. It is more stark than it shows here. Most is in disrepair.

New housing is also going up.

Terezin, Theresienstadt, current residences, old cannon aimed

Staying at Theresienstadt, Terezin. Not common yet, but do it.

Theresienstadt (Terezin) Pension, or rooming house

There is a rooming house, a "Pension" just outside the walls. And the car could be parked inside a locked lot. Stay there instead of returning the 5 miles to the "regular" town, Litomerice. There was a small eating place in town, home cooking and very good; people just there and talking. No fuss.

Theresienstadt, Terezin pension parking area. Secure enough.

Auschwitz - Birkenau, Poland, where Petr died

2008-08-08T07:21:00.001-04:00

Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Places of Petr Ginz

Petr was sent to Auschwitz -Birkenau, a complex of two concentration camps, see www.remember.org/camps/birkenau/bir-introduction.html, after his two years at the Theresienstadt ghetto. We went to Auschwitz, but not the second camp almost adjoining, called Birkenau. I am not sure exactly which one held Petr.

Here is Auschwitz now: see the barracks, the guard houses. With all so tidy and tourist-organized antiseptic, you have to imagine for yourself the cold, the hunger, the suffering. They do retain the buildings where terrible pain was inflicted. Some barracks are now dedicated to specific nationalities or ethnic groups of the victims, with records and collections of items.

See the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem's website on the holocaust, and Auschwitz in particular, at www.yadvashem.org/.

Auschwitz, restored Barracks, street. Museums in barracks.

The information boards along the way are helpful. At the parade ground, trains came in nearby, and the guard house prevents escape attempts.

Auschwitz, by parade ground, guard tower

Ovens, crematory, Auschwitz PL

Birkenau was just across the way, and housed more of the crematories and ovens than did Auschwitz. See ://remember.org/camps/birkenau/bir-introduction.html/. Auschwitz was known as the concentration camp, and Birkenau was known as the death camp.

Petr was killed immediately, reported a friend, Kurt Kotouc, who survived. See www.radio.cz/en/article/37256.

This building, set in the hill-hummock with the chimney, housed the gas chambers and crematorium.

Auschwitz is in Poland, and the Polish name is Osweicim.

Auschwitz. Read "The Seventh Well," by Fred Wander. Life In the Camps

2008-08-07T10:40:00.002-04:00

"The Seventh Well"

Fred Wander, Survivor

The Death Camps. The Labor Camps. Auschwitz and its complex including Birkenau, where Petr Ginz died.

We have films, diaries of people of many ages, novels. Let us introduce you to the inmate and novelist, Fred Wander, in various camps including Buchenwald and Auschwitz, during the years 1938-1945. His novel, a work of fiction stemming from people he knew in the camps, gives an inside, human look at the atrocity that the camps were in conception and execution: "The Seventh Well," by Fred Wander, W.W. Norton & Co., NY NY latest copyright 2008. See review at the National Yiddish Book Center, at ://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/+10450

The book was originally written in German, as "Der Siebente Brunnen," and is here translated by Michael Hofmann. Fred Wander died in 2006 in Vienna. He apparently put together other recollections, variously entitled "Das Gute Leben" - the "good life" in the sense of fullness, kindliness (not virtuous, epicurean), notes the translator. An alternate title - "Von der Frohlichkeit im Schrecken" means something like "remaining cheerful in the midst of horror."

It is a small book, and mighty. He speaks little of himself, his experience. He is a conduit for the stories of others, the collaboration needed to keep each other alive, when that could be done. For adults rather than for children; stories retold, tales that immortalize the unnumbered dead. Relive it. The chapters are severable - not sequential. Find there pain but also humor, dignity. Learn the day-to-day routines, how to survive, who learned that and who didn't, the random, the chosen, the happenstance horrors. And soaring spirit.

Lens and Legacy: Ask, Whose View of History is History ? Propaganda, Lens and Angle

2008-07-21T18:45:00.002-04:00

Who says? Does the propagandist make it so, or was it really so?

Is any retrospective ever "history"The danger of looking back. The difference an angle makes. The world of Petr Ginz.

His writing is objective, data-oriented. This carries with it a danger for us. How to fill in what he did not write about, while avoiding falsehood and factoid. How to separate out the factoids. See "factoid" at bartleby.com/61/74/F0007400. Spin is an art form. Yet, we look back with our lens and know that parts of that scene are missing.

What is missing is a picture of how propaganda created the world he was handed.

The limits of looking back

Edward Bernays, who championed the cause of Public Relations and how to persuade, back in 1928, knew how people yearn to fill in blanks to fit a worldview.

We cooperate in the sales process, by falling line with the claims and techniques, and filling in blanks as desired by the seller of the idea or the product. Look up Edward Bernays' 1928 public relations genius, as that is summarized at this site: www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Propaganda/Propaganda_Bernays.

Research and check, research and check. We are cautious in our lookbacks, and try to keep current in new information about World War II as it hatches. For new information now emerging, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/18/world/18cnd-holocaust.html. We also have a healthy concern for the propaganda that colors what we are told about our world today.

Propagandists selling their points can appear quite ordinary

The concern for propaganda is on point.

Petr's world evolved as it did largely because of the successes of propaganda being foisted all around him. Revisit the US Govt Institute for Propaganda Analysis 1937-1942. Check against those vintage talking points, now being used in new ways today, your own skills in factoid-finding. Go to the specifics of
www.propagandacritic.com/. See our WWII US Govt's Institute for Propaganda Analysis 1937-1942-- look it up at www.propagandacritic.com/articles/intro.ipa. Then, as you read today's news, check your issue or concern out again against the techniques used to convey it to you, and make up your own mind.

Why study Petr and his life, when you have a busy one of your own? Because past is present is future. And it is possible to broaden your own lens.

Uses of propaganda in selling history.

Legacy: Heightened Awareness of Torture. When you can hear it, see it - Petr Ginz and others at Auschwitz

2008-07-21T18:44:00.001-04:00

Auschwitz. A tree grows by the ovens.

Warfare and genocide turned this child's life into death. This site began as a benign photography site elaborating on the life of Petr Ginz. It has more of an edge now.

Here are the ovens, the crematory. Below, structures including medical experiments buildings at Auschwitz. He was there. Think quietly of the sights and sounds?

This is unimaginable. Here is a tidied tourist Auschwitz. Gas. Ovens. See Auschwitz posts and more photos at Poland Road Ways. Forced labor at other camps, see Buchenwald posts at Germany Road Ways; and the mass burial sites at Jasenovac in Croatia, Croatia Road Ways, where, among the atrocities, Roman Catholic Christians stood by Orthodox Christians were put to death rather than stand up for life.

See www.isurvived.org/AUSCHWITZ_TheCamp.

Torture. It may not be too late to see for yourself what torture is. Whether you call it "extreme interrogation," and try to sanitize it out of existence so you can do it anyway, or fake it as "torture light," the concept remains.

Go to Romania, actually or by internet.

There used to be a website showing where all the old political prisons were. We should have printed it out because it is not online any more, not where we can find it.

We chose to see Sighet Prison at Sighetu Marmetiei, now "The Museum of Arrested Thought," in Maramures. See the benevolent little description of the activities inside offered at this site in passing, in hopes you won't notice, at www.romaniatourism.com/villages.

Then take the tour. The guide will not be free to talk much, but you can try. This site gives a more accurate description: romaniaguide.tripod.com/maramures2. Floors of cells, clang. Central atrium set-up. See and hear everybody. See further discussion of the role of pain-infliction in societies, ours and Romanian, at Romania Road Ways, post on Sighet Prison, Maramures.

Frigid temperature techniques, our heads of state say is fine? See the cell, iron ring in the center, floor level at least 6 inches below the rest - so water up to 4 inches can layer the floor for the naked prisoner, chained to the ring. Make the prisoner lie down? What if the water is up 6 inches, and you can't rest your head while lying down. How long? No chair. Floors of cells with rings on the walls, photos, metal tables. Torture shown. Go there. See Sighet entries at Romania Road Ways. We were so relieved that America would never do those things. Tut. Antiseptic torture - turn on the spigot, lock the lock, leave. Nice. Is it not torture just because you can set the mechanisms going, then walk away. Or outsource the cudgeling.

Auschwitz. Street and Guard Tower

A problem with force: It cannot, and will not, be controlled out. It can only be managed, if caught and channelled early enough. Is that right?

It is addictive. Gives pleasure to the forcer. Household, domestic, colonial or other international abuse. Accelerating. Universal corruption. No way to restrict force to the minimal needed to accomplish or even define a proper objective. What is reasonable defense. Reasonable containment.

Can we go another route entirely? Who were those tortured at Sighet Prison, the now Museum of Arrested Thought - academics, ministers, historians, more -- see photos, building, history at www.memorialsighet.ro/en/istoric_cladire_sighet.asp

We do not torture, say some heads of state. What do they mean. See www.havenworks.com/world/romania/. There used to be a map on the web with all the sites of the prisons in Romania. Can't find it now. Here it is - somebody has it up - a reproduction, at neptunerising.blogspot.com/2006/11/romania-bucharest-transylvania-and.html. Are they used?

Lens and Legacy: When your Roots are Mischling. Labeled for targeting. Jews. Mudbloods.

2008-07-21T18:43:00.002-04:00

Roots. Not pretty.

Petr Ginz and the issue of cultural labeling. Labeling groups.

Roots usually are not pretty. Roots-avoidance is more pleasant.

We are looking here at particularly ugly roots, at cultural labeling. For Petr Ginz, the label of "Mischling"- a half blood. Mother Christian, father Jewish.

Labeling is a shorthand for who's worthy and who is not; and its consequences are dehumanizing. Is this a global problem in cultures. See Robert Fuller's "rankism" at ://www.breakingranks.net/weblog/rankism/; and an overview at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankism. Fine-looking trees can be growing above, but what holds them up may be a frightening set of traditions and constructs.

Petr Ginz and other part-Jew, part-Christian, were deemed "mixed-bloods," or "Mischlings," by the Third Reich. The Nuremberg laws, see ://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nurlaws.html, established firm definitions, see ://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_mischling.

The function of categorizing. Categorizing serves to set rank, and in Petr's case, to set them apart for ghettos and destruction in a time frame that was a little more lenient than for full Jews, but not by much.

A label is a way to dehumanize, facilitate disposal.

Examining roots in cultures is hard work. Sometimes roots like these can only be explored after the fact, when the huge construct that those roots supported finally up-end. The roots of the world of Petr Ginz. A diary with unfamiliar places, and an overlay of horror.
Why look at WWII? Because barbarism is still with us.

Branchings from one shoot: uncontrolled, uncontrollable? When to lop.

As you read versions of history - stemming from the same events, but very different in interpretation, form, watch. Are the sources, the spins, giving you the broad information you need to make up your own mind, or only enough to persuade you to follow theirs?

Anyone who thinks that a believed or actual event leads to one true interpretation path onwards, has not walked in the woods.

No one angle predominates as to many trees, unless somebody lops off the competition, or the offshoot was overshaded and withers. Look at that strong, straight, newish one catty-corner heading to the upper left. It is newer, but may end up the strongest of all.

As to WWII, if you can, go to the Nuremberg Nazi Documentation Center, Germany Road Ways. The visual dimension for us is like mortar between the building blocks.

Petr Ginz, a Mischling. A fact to be included at sites like Factbites, and they invite a link, and we offer it: Factbites, Petr Ginz.

Lens and Legacy: The Instability of Barriers. Walls Against People, and Harry Potter

2008-07-21T18:38:00.002-04:00

Considering Walls

The Berlin Wall

The long-term uselessness of walls. One wall goes down, another goes up. Like bop-a-top.
With human waste in between. Germans have tried every kind: political, as in the Berlin Wall; and religious-cultural-racial, as in the Holocaust.

Here is the Berlin Wall - a political wall, not a religiously motivated one, rising after the Second World War was supposedly over, but continuing its mindset. Walls once seen as a way to enhance your own position by doing away with dissent, trap those fleeing. And do away with dissenters. Wall in, wall out.

Walls against people. Religious walls. Mischlings in Nazi occupied countries. The mixed bloods, not pure Aryan. Walls went up and exterminations followed. See Petr Ginz: Lens, Legacy, Places. Mischling.

Just as with the Jews, the walls and persecutions against them in Harry Potter's books fostered courage and drive, as well as despair, and some giving up during the worst when the powers seemed unsurmountable; but courage and drive at last prevailed. Is that not right?

Berlin Wall memorial

Revolt against it took place in many forms, and the experience festers for years.

They never last. "Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down!" American Poet Robert Frost, at www.bartleby.com/104/64. Poem: "Mending Wall."

Immigration walls, now in vogue. See ://www.aztlan.net/cuacua3.htm. No learning. None.

Lens and Legacy: Immigration History in Prague's Mortar. Genocide and Migrations.

2008-07-21T18:22:00.001-04:00

Spanish Synagogue, Dusni Synagogue, Prague

The lens of architecture and immigration. How do people bring with them their past. See where people come from by the buildings they create. What they want to remember.

1. Critical Mass Can Enable a New Identity. This occurs when there are enough to make a statement after all the small groups come together somehow. Put a human face on it through Petr Ginz and his community.

Here, the facade of the Spanish Synagogue in Prague, the Dusni Synagogue, known to Petr Ginz, see Petr Ginz, Places, Josevof. The synagogue is named for its architectural style resembling the Moorish Alhambra in Spain, see Spain Road Ways - Alhambra; //www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/The_Alhambra.html.

See the history of Jews in Spain at //www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/8636/History.html.
Large and many groups of people, moving around the globe in search of home or conquest-conversion. Watch the unfolding:

1242 - rise of antisemitism, Europe.
1290 - England expels Jews, many go to Spain.
1306 - France expels Jews, many go to Spain.
1348 - Plague, Central Europe, then Spain - Jews wash hands, keep sewage at a distance, and conduct burials quickly - plague hits their communities less hard, causing Christians to accuse them of poisoning Christian wells, etc. See geocities site.
1391 - persecutions, expulsions, and on and on.
1492 - huge expulsion.
Then leap forward to genocide.

The Spanish Jews who left Spain and Portugal, were known as Sephardim. See //www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Sephardim.html. Here in Prague, the building preserves on its face an entire era.

2. Critical Mass Can Become a Threat, Causing Extreme Reactions - Genocide.

Genocide. If the label is applied, does it dignify the deaths, prevent recurrence. Or not. Term coined in 1943-1944. See //www.visiontv.ca/RememberRwanda/Files/FS-ICCandGenocide.pdf.

When groups arrive, gradually and not by army, at what point do the local people feel threat. Because many do. Cultural absorption arises as an issue: The current power groups want it - be like us. The newer groups may not - we lose our ways. There is force. The old infrastructure may fall away.

What is the human critical mass. In a community, is there a predictable point of change, the size of the new group required before an event occurs, as in nuclear fission. See //encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861688572/critical_mass.html. The concept is familiar. Finally force enters, to preserve someone's something. See Spain Road Ways, post on colonialism, takeovers.

History sites: For eastern-central Europe, see, for a start, "Jewish Immigration" at //jbuff.com/c121400.htm, commentary by a Dr. Gerhard Falk. The topic is in the curriculum at Yeshiva University, see http://www.yu.edu/catalog/undergrad/catalog0406_women/courses/c1_CoursesJHIS_0406_women.htm. Are the classes separated by gender? This is not my tradition, and I am interested.

4. Track Explosions of Critical Mass and Immigration Tinderboxes. Current events:

4.1. The United States and immigration. Some sites in favor: //www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?eventID=99. Or //www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4206.

Article on the no's at //www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979734-3,00.html. Think and vote online at //www.ontheissues.org/VoteMatch/q15_2006.asp.

4.2. England and its colonial populations.

4.3. Switzerland - see New York Times, 10/08/2007, Switzerland's coping - and the political mailing with the picture of three white sheep kicking out the black sheep, and the caption on maintaining security. See post at The Joy of Equivocating: Lets You Say the Unsayable. See "Immigration, Black Sheep and Black Rage," at //www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/world/europe/08swiss.html, and maneuver to the article. Do an images search for the picture itself.

4.4. Rwanda, Darfur

4.5. Turkey. Armenians. What was the tipping point. See www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/armenians.htm; University of Michigan "Fact Sheet" at http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/facts/genocide.html. Here is an Armenian view: http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Armenian_Genocide.

Lens and Legacy: Heightened Awareness of Preconditions leading to Genocide, Persecution

2008-07-21T17:20:00.001-04:00

Buchenwald Labor Camp, Stake and Quarry Cart, Germany

1. What can we learn.

What combination of factors led to the Holocaust that we can reasonably work to spot. Or Darfur. Or witch-burnings. Ethnic cleansings. Murders individually. Collectively genocides. Is the start as simple as defining some people in, some people out.

Get a straightforward overview of some of these concepts, as they pertained to Petr Ginz, at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Ginz. All flowerings have roots. The world of Petr Ginz is not just a matter of history.

2. One of the themes we watch, is a culture's designating inferiors as disposable. Mischling and Mudblood.

Corrupted power. Killing, or until it comes to that, force to further someone else's social or political or religious or other goals. Like inquisitions. Ethnic cleansing. These killed Petr Ginz, and will that ever change. Our children may not know the term "mischling," but they know its equivalent, "mudblood." Examine the parallel to "Mischlings" in the Harry Potter book series, by J.K.Rowling, in the sense that a group is there designated as disposable.

2. Petr Ginz. The power of a word: Mischling.

A key to understanding what happened is looking at the use of words to categorize and dismiss people. For Petr, he was designated a "Mischling", and so became mere fodder. Petr Ginz' sister, in her introduction to his diary, notes that she and Petr were categorized as "Mischlings," by the Nazi regime. They had parents of mixed "blood"- Roman Catholic/Aryan/ and Jewish. See post on the Nazi Mischling status at Petr Ginz as Mischling, Places of Petr Ginz. Mischling children had some privileges over those with no Aryan "blood" in that their deportation to concentration camps could be delayed, but their fate remained the same. Likely death. And while living in ghettoes, the deprivations and abuse were horrendous. See the current TV film series, PBS, Ken Burns, "The War." See thewartapes.com/trailer/. See also Studying World War; and World Wars: Sites.

3. Harry Potter. The power of a word: Mudblood.

What happens in that series of books that demonstrates the same mindset: Uses of categories to dismiss and then easily dispose of people. There, not "Mischlings," but mudbloods as fodder. See "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the most recent, by J.K. Rowling, illustrations by Mary Grandpre, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (Britain), Scholastic Press (US), 2007. With the label firmly in place, the following follow easily: Persecutions. Purges. Ethnic cleansing.

In the "Deathly Hallows" book, the mischling-types are also mixed bloods, not Christian and Jewish mix, but mix between wizards and nonwizards, called muggles, and conflict is peaking.

Those children are called mudbloods.

Mudbloods may well have wizarding powers, just as much as other wizards, but they are still looked down upon by the purists. For more parallels to our religious and political worlds, Look at the branches of mainstream wizardry represented by the Houses at Hogwarts - purists, authoritarians in Slytherin; and those protective of all wizards, including mudbloods, and even muggles, in Gryffindor, etc. Go on: what marginalized groups are represented by the goblins and their philosophy or the squibs (nonmagical children of wizard parents), on and on.

Categories, slots, roles. Even saying the name of the one who must not be named will bring on the hunters.

Women's Cage of Disgrace, Levoca, Slovakia

4. Other categories in vogue from time to time: Women, Gays, Immigrants.

5. A common reaction: Ethnic cleansing; Inquisition.

Historical and current events. Throughout, find virtual Mishlings and virtual mudbloods, squibs, goblins and Slytherins. And ethnic/cultural/religious/political cleansings.

Here is an example from older, inquisition-era, Thirty-Years'War type Europe: Apply the category "witch," and caging and even death becomes simple.

Here is the cage in which women were put, for example as witches or ladies who did not stay home and spin, supposedly, in the seventeenth century, Levoca, Slovakia. See post at Slovakia Road Ways. Label it and you can do what you want with it.

Like our own religious/political/social history - splits and schisms, those with some characteristics clumping together to dominate.

6. Persecution themes in literature.

This recurs in the Potter book, "Deathly Hallows," see www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/dh/book_dh for its details.

The mudblood wizards - are being persecuted, tortured, chased, devalued, purged, by the purist wizards, and with no concern for what happens to the collateral damage of the muggles, people with no magical powers at all; or, worse, the wizard children with no magical powers. Ministries are being taken over, invaded by the purists, and dark forces take over authority and spin-manipulate the propaganda machines of the land. The hero is designated as Undesirable, and the hunt is on.

7. Parent interest. Not much, so long as the kids are entertained.

Opportunity missed. The themes are current. The point is that your children are reading about the great themes of human conflict and supremacism: How To Get Power and Keep It, in the Harry Potter series- and you thought they were just amusing themselves.

Talk to them about it all.

Now, introduce them to Petr Ginz, who was killed because of those things. He is probably their age.

5. Parent hurdles. Some adults avoid Harry Potter because of its fantasy setting; the ambiguities.

5.1 Irrelevant. If you have avoided reading these Potter books, you have company. Many think the books are for children and fanciful only and have no constructive relation to rearing children who will get ahead (and they never liked fantasy anyway).

Think again. Better yet, get back in touch as an adult with worlds down rabbit holes, or through looking glasses. Reference here: become familiar with your children's world. Go yourself to www.jkrowling.com, or this fanclub-type site with lots of info at www.mugglenet.com/. We are not talking fantasy, really. The themes are real.

5.2 Discomfort with ambiguity. Harry Potter does not fit neatly in our world. Some people find that disquieting to their other beliefs.

That is predictable. We differ in how we prefer to learn. See, for example, www.mtsu.edu/~studskl/hd/learn. Some people want to know where everything is in a hierarchy or line, and what each word means, and for someone else to tell them those things so they can memorize it, and once a judgment is made, it might never change, regardless of new information. We differ.

Lens and Legacy. Columbia Shuttle Tragedy: Petr Ginz Drawing On Board

2008-07-20T07:20:00.003-04:00

Columbia Shuttle Deaths 2003 -

Further Details Reported.
.

Reminder: Petr Ginz drawing, Moonscape:

Carried by Israeli Astronaut Ilal Ramon

See the drawing at ://www1.yadvashem.org.il/yv/en/education/newsletter/15/images/main2.jpg

News recently accounted for the circumstances of the deaths of the Columbia Space Shuttle astronauts on February 1, 2003. See Wall Street Journal article, "NASA Reports Details of Columbia Shuttle Deaths," at ://online.wsj.com/article/SB123065756929342883.html?mod=googlenews_wsj/

Seven astronauts were on board, including Israel's first astronaut, Ilal Ramon. See Petr Ginz, Places, Lens, Legacy- Moonscape.

Not reported in this round of coverage is the fact that Ilal Ramon carried with him the original of a drawing by Petr Ginz, made at Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto in the time he was transported there and lived, until further transport to Auschwitz, and his death. We regret the cutbacks in reporters on stories these days, because this would have interested many since the publishing of Petr Ginz' diary.

Theresienstadt, Terezin, CZ: Ghetto, Jewish Memorial, transport train siding area

Read about it and see the drawing at "Moon Landscape drawing" at ://www.science.co.il/ilan-ramon/moon-landscape.asp/ See also the Special Exhibit In Honor of Israeli Astronaut Ilan Ramon Yad Vashem, Jerusalem's Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority, at ://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/press_room/press_releases/ilan_ramon.html/ It includes information about Petr Ginz and his drawing.

Legacy: Gratitude of All of Us To Mrs. Pressburger

2008-07-01T18:20:00.001-04:00

Good afternoon from strangers. Your book has become important to us, as a way of making real that traumatic era, in your family's terms. Thank you.

Please look carefully here and tell us if we have something incorrect. Is there something in a post, some idea, some impression, that leaves you uncomfortable?

A rough update on the streets Petr mentions is at the post of August 15 or so. A step after that is to look up the names on any roster we can find about survivors, or those who did not survive among the people mentioned.

Petr's family entries: My favorite is Petr at page 53. He says this: That that your mother at one point left, to go back to Hradec, for a respite from the stress, it looks like. But he adds that she left inadequate instructions on what the family was to cook, but that you all would manage.

This is the museum at Theresienstadt, Terezin, where Petr attended school in the ghetto there before being sent to Auschwitz in WWII, and his death.

Seeing this building and the Jewish Memorial brings to mind that people like Petr have much to tell us, so let's put his words where they belong - even in any films, or remakes of films about the era, especially in any next "Operation Daybreak."

In respect and tribute.

Warm regards.
The Car-Dan Tour Company

Links

2007-08-06T13:58:00.002-04:00

Add to Technorati Favorites

The links and cites are written out, because of copyright concerns. The dates of posts reflect organization so that similar places are located together, and do not necessarily show the date of original posting.

See a teaching approach, Newspapers in Education, Prague 200, at www.praguepost.cz/PPEF/09NIE030219.pdf

http://petrginz.blogspot.com/posts/feeds/default