For the past month, my head has been only in the past-- not my own past, but the historical one. For my birthday I received a book from two of my close friends in the church entitled, Neni Spravedlnost na Zemi(There is No Justice on Earth), which is the personal account of a Czech, Jewish man who was taken as a prisoner during WWII and sent to not one, but five concentration camps, all of which he miraculously lived through. The book has been quite a joy to get through for many reasons, one of which is that he covers a topic that I've always thought about, but never had answers to: What did the Holocaust survivors do when they returned home? I've been really taken back by how he humanizes the whole situation. Often times, when thinking about history, I tend to think of it on a grand scale, which paints the people and the events, in relation to me, as greater than they actually were--you could say that I make history inaccessible for myself. Yet, through this book, I've grown to see the holocaust, humanized--as much as it can be--through the experiences that the writer recounts. Here are some of the more interesting and thought-provoking incidences that I've come across: he says that most of the Jews who were sent to the concentration camps, while they hated the Germans, were not revengeful when the war was over; when the Jews who had survived returned home, they often found out that their homes were occupied by other families (sometimes old neighbors) and many of their personal possessions had been stolen or hidden, never to be found again; while walking on the street, a month after he had been liberated from the last concentration camp, Sauchsenhausen, he couldn't remember the names of old acquaintances and many of them , in turn, couldn't recognize him due to this emaciated, near-death state; many holocaust survivors still held out hope that their families would return after the war, as many of them were separated into to completely different camps, so their respective destinies were unknown to each other; in the death camps enemies were everywhere, even the other prisoners; one of the hardest social aspects to adjust to while being back was relations towards the opposite sex (in his case, woman),as he couldn't draw a clear distinction between pity and love and empathy and lies. Also, he speaks about how immediately upon his return back into normal, civilian life, many people around him looked up to him as a man who has 'experiences' in life and carries 'a big stick', which left him always in the awkward position of having to try to explain to those who looked up to him, that in fact he had NO real-life experience, and he was completely out of sync with how to react and live on an acceptable, social and relational level; all he knew was death, burning, robbery, deceit and the tenacity it takes to survive in hell.
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Jan approached me about two months ago with a proposal to help him translate a historical book from the United States, from Czech into English. The book is entitled Pamatnik (Memorial), and is a collection of local histories compiled at the turn of the century by Czech pastors who wanted to write a comprehensive history of every single Czech congregation in America. Aside from the fact that the writing is nauseatingly pretentious (why is it that people need to make themselves LOOK intelligent), and that many of the founding stories are all the same, families move to America--they are poor--they want God--they found a church--have some troubles, get a pastor--find God--Hallelujah, the book itself has been a really fun way for me to get a glimpse into the rough-and-tumble lives of American settlers of the early Midwest. It's hard for us to imagine how much life has changed since then, but here a few of the more interesting tidbits of 'daily-grind' type stuff: The pastors often had to commute more than 60 miles to their congregations, on foot; churches cost less than 500 dollars to build; many original inhabitants of South Dakota lived in houses called 'Soddys', named after the material they were made out of; pastors in Texas had to flee to Mexico during the American Civil War (I'm sure they were glad the Mexicans weren't like Arizonans); the boom and bust cycle of the early plain states is unbelievable--a town could be built within a few days thanks to only a railroad station; and, one pastor got lost on his way to church in Illinois for over six days due in large part because he couldn't see over the tall grass.
Sometimes I find it really quite silly when we Americans claim our ancestry when we effectively know nothing of the language, the culture or the history of the people, yet, this book does remind me that at one point, no too long ago, a majority of the people in places like Wahoo, Nebraska or Silver Lake, South Dakota, were speaking Czech not English, and referred to their neighbors as Germans, Swedish, Dutch and Slovaks, not 'Americans'. I find it quite sad that much of this cultural heterogeneity has been lost only within the last 100 years.
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Having spoken about the history of Czechs on the plains, I feel that it would be interesting for you to know Jamie and I (mainly Jamie) have been delving into some research about Slovaks in Pittsburgh--mainly through my dad's side of the family. She has a great advantage over most people, in that she can understand and read a little Slovak, so she can peruse not just through English-language websites about ancestry, but Slovak-language one's as well. She has done a pretty impressive job, and I won't post too much about it here, because I know that she wants to be the one to tell you more. She has managed to make contact with a relative of mine who is still living in Slovakia--we've been emailing her for the past two months and plan on visiting her in June (we write in Czech, she writes in Slovak)-- she's found information on my great grandfather, the boat he arrived in New York on, the date of his arrival and information about his parents and grandparents. She's contacted some of my 'relatives' who are living in the United States, and she's been partnering in research with a Slovak man who is helping us piece some of this story together. We'll keep you updated on the 'developments'.
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Just this past weekend, Jamie and I went on a camping trip with one of our youth group members, Filip. On Saturday night, we all decided to take a break from the path and find a small pub where we could have a few cokes and a beer (me). We were successful in our endeavoring and found quite a comfortable-looking place about two blocks away from where our tents were located. After about 40 minutes of sitting in the medieval-themed bar, Filip's face turned, as he wore an expression of disgust and worry-- the normal talkative Filip wouldn't let out more than a few words at a time and his eyes were continuously scanning the room. Looking at me, Filip with a very stiff expression said, "These songs their playing in here are racist." "Really!?" I said. "Sing to me the lyrics, slowly." Hesitantly he began to articulate, "Bila Sila!", "Bila Sila!", "Bila Sila!" There was more to the refrain, but I can't really recall it right now, all you need to know is that 'Bila Sila' is directly translated into 'White Power' in English. I couldn't believe it. Here we were, in the 21st century, sitting in a pub in the heart-land of Bohemia, a country that has seen its fair share of violence and war, listening to the same dribble that came from the mouths of the KKK, and the same ideological foundation that the Nazis built their racist-terrorizing machine upon; this whole experience did not coalesce so well with my recent reflections about what I had been reading from Neni Spravedlnost na Zemi. All three of use left the pub in a hurry, and as we exited, the manager came up to us to get our money. He was very kind and he told us to come back again some day, but I couldn't get my mind off of the fact that this business supports violence, racism, killing and blind hate, yet they all looked and were, genuinely kind. And it was then that I realized that I really do have an advantage just by the fact that I have white skin; I can never imagine what it would be like to be a person of color in that place. How terrible and lonely would I feel? How rude, violent and aggressive would the patrons be? Who would be against me? I can't know. I never will know.
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The past few weeks at work in the church have been really odd in the fact that I know I'm practically done; I'm yearning for the day of rest where I can say, "Job well done, Jeremy." "You've accomplished a lot." I know that it is near, and the spring time doesn’t help. With each passing day that leaves on the trees get greener and fuller, I'm reminded of how fleeting my last two months will be, and I'm content in that fact. I don't want to come to work every single day and focus only on my job; I want to spend time with friends; I want to make time to take walks outside; I want to research about apartments in Erie; I want to plan my first two weeks back in America; I want to engage myself in the life that is to come--all of this, of course, is while I'm sitting in the office. When I'm on the street, or out socializing with my friends, the feeling is quite the opposite: It's as if I'm never leaving Policka and I'll be able to cultivate and grown in my relationships for many years to come. However, the sad reality is that I must also prepare myself to leave my social life--the friends, the parties, the concerts, the nights in the pub, the gym--fairly shortly. It's just a bummer that that is much more difficult to do.
Relationships mean so much more than responsibilities at this point.
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