Midpoint Birthday

It is so hard to believe, but mid October represents the middle of our program and we had a birthday to celebrate reaching the half way point.  I thought it would be nice for people to see the "meat and potatoes" of the program, because this is a program for studying abroad and not just taking excursions.

Here are some shots of students in the class rooms.

On this day we were celebrating not only a birthday, but alsohaving a typical "Viennese breakfast".

 

Between classes students often hang out on the top of the University building, where there are stunning views of the mountains.

 

There is a central courtyard and a kind of Quad on the roof.  I love this shot of DM walking along the far end of this quad. You can see Salzburg's  medieval city wall in the background.

Trip to Mauthausen October 11

In Salzburg of late there has been a lot of press about the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the second world war and television stations are showing film footage and exploring the reactions of Austrians all over (both the positive and the negative) as the Nazis came in.  The financial situation was glum and generally the Nazis were welcomed in with open arms. Salzburg, too, had rallies for Hitler and was the only Austrian city that held a public book burning.

Mindful of this past, we always bring the students to Mauthausen, where the primary Austrian concentration camp was located (8 August 1938, to 5 May 1945). Primary camp, because there were eventually over 100 sub-camps located around Austria and southern Germany that were grouped under the main camp.)

The day was sunny and beautiful and would make quite a contrast to the grizzly subject matter.

The camp was on a hill and was huge.

Before we went on the tour we had lunch in the cafeteria.

In order to make the SS people seem important and valued, no expense was spared in their accomodations. Here we see a swimming pool near the entrance to the camp that advertises the luxury and significance that the officers enjoyed.

Just across from the pool was a field where exhibition soccer matches were held to show off the healthy, sportive officers, but fields which also later housed Russian prisoners in abject conditions and a "hospital" area for the hopelessly ill.

 

You might recognize some of our students down there exploring the area.

We took the long way into the camp, the road the prisoners would have had to take.

Mauthausen was not a so-called "death camp" until very near the end of the war. Mostly they exploited the prisoners for slave labor, working them to death in the quarries and munitions factories to supply the war.

Most of the barracks have been torn down, but these were left standing as an example of what the camp looked like when it was running.

Our guide was quite good about exploring the view from different perspectives and how the camp was propagandized. 

For example, he took us to the showers and showed us that they were indeed just showers for delousing and hygiene. The means for turning them on and off is inside the room and the doors are not air tight, thus showing that this was not a place that gas was used.

 

Near the end of the war, they did bring in gas. Here is one of the few remaining engines for pumping the gas into the gas chamber.

One of the best things about the camp is the many statues and memorials to the people who died there.  Here are some of the faces of those who lost their lives in Mauthausen.

  

 

Ordinarily I would not post pictures of unhappy students, but the occasion was solemn and the effects of seeing such barbarism are obvious.

 We were glad to have come and learned about the Mauthausen concentration camp, and we were happy to leave. It had been a long, hard day.

A Little Bit of Prague

We did so many exciting things in Prague, that I can't chronicle them all, so what I will do is include a few pictures of places we went.

Students started each morning with breakfast at the Hostel Santini.

 
You can tell it was a little cold and rainy, but the students were real troopers!

On our first evening after we had eaten in the nice restaurant, we wandered around the square where the big castle is. To get up to the restaurant and square there of course we had to climb.

But it was well worth it!

The square is huge compared to most of the squares we are accustomed to in Salzburg.

You can also get a really nice view of the lower city from the parapet.

 One of the first places we went together as a group was the Lobkowicz Palace. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia).

 

We had read about (all the) defenestration(s) of Prague, but of course what is so interesting, is that the Catholic emissaries were hidden by Princess Polyxena Lobkowicz in this palace after they had been thrown out of the Prague Castle window. Here is a painting comemorating the event that we saw in the palace.

There were lots of images of all the Habsburgs we had been studying and other important people and of course beautiful art by Brueghel, and Velázquez.

 

 And there was furniture and objets d'art and weapons.

And you could see wonderful views of the town below from the balconies.

Like this:

I think they enjoyed this!

 

We also visited the Cathedral, which was so big you couldn't get it into a single shot.

We also got a little time to ourselves to explore.

On our "free time," Pia and I went to a wonderful decco cafe near the Astronomical clock called the Municipal House Cafe. It is so named, because it is housed in the art nouveau Municipal House.

 

In contrast to the elegant restaurant we visited the first night, we chose a working person's cafeteria for our second dinner meal.

 

Here we got to eat like the locals.

We had a traditional honey cake dessert or chocolate cake as well as dumplings and a goulash stew.

A very cool thing was the students taking me to see the John Lennon memorial wall.  I am a huge fan and I found it quite moving.

One of the best things was just walking around the streets of Prague.

 

Of course everyone went to see the famous Charles bridge. (And as you can see the weather eventually got better and a bit warmer, but only very  gradually.)

In the morning of our last day in Prague we visited the Jewish quarter and large Jewish cemetery. We were able to drop our luggage off at the bus and then head to this section of town we had not yet explored.

We got to see this really interesting memorial to Franz Kafka. One of our German majors wanted her picture taken with this great German/Czech/Jewish writer.

We gathered at the Jewish Museum and then took a walking tour of the nearby Synagogues.

 

The cemetery was especially memorable, since the Jewish community had been forced to limit space, there were so many graves and markers pressed up against each other. Sadly, it was only preserved because Hitler had wanted to save this area as a testament to his destruction of the Jews and what he hoped would become an exterminated people.

 

 

And then once again it was time to go home. As we headed back to the bus the sun had finally decided to come out, so we said goodbye to the Prague castle in its full glory.

 
Here is the last shot I took of Prague as the bus headed across the river. It had been an unforgettable experience forus all.