By Ciera Moore Since coming to Central Europe, we have visited many museums. Some of them were really interesting and introduced us to new information like the Holocaust museum in Budapest. Other museums were not as informative or were very flashy and over-the-top such as the House of Terror also located in Budapest. Our […]
By Aren Burnside Monuments, memorials, and museums all attempt to convey history to their visitors. Yet what audience are these structures aimed at? To whom are these monuments, memorials, and museums meant to teach history? In an era of increasing globalization and international travel, it might be easy to say everyone. However, an important feature […]
By Raymundo Juarez At 6:00, on a Saturday morning, my alarm rang the new day in, waking me up for one of my regular A.M. runs. The circumstances, however, were not regular. This was my first morning waking up in a foreign country, having landed in the city of Budapest less than 12 hours before. […]
By Autumn McMillan I’ve been to five countries in the last two weeks – Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Poland, and Czech Republic. When I call home to my friends I always make sure to open up with this punch-line. Yet during my journey through these five countries, a frustrating contradiction stood out to me. Each of […]
By Jay Skelton Everyone has been a victim of something, of someone; and, because of that, everyone feels sorry for a fellow victim. Everyone can respect a fellow victim. Everyone can trust a fellow victim. But what if that person that is respected, that is trusted, is not the victim at all. What if those […]
By Mia White Budapest is known for its many gorgeous and unique landmarks that are scattered among the city from one block to another. Buda and Pest, once two different cities on opposite sides of the Danube, have two very different lifestyles and cultures. Buda’s skyline is dominated by castles, cathedrals and residential villas, while […]
By Clare Toner Part of what drew me to the Central Europe Program offered by Syracuse University is its focus on the Holocaust. Prior to beginning this semester abroad, I considered myself to be well-versed on this subject. I studied it throughout my elementary, middle, and high school history courses in small doses and felt […]
By Kyra McDermott In every corner of the world, monuments and memorials are created to commemorate pieces of the past that need to be remembered. During our travels throughout Europe, I began to pay closer attention to the effectiveness of each of these memorials. Before this trip, I tended to take memorials for what they were […]
By Rody Conway Can a city be out-of-place? Vienna and Budapest, the two capitals of the former dual-monarchy of Austria-Hungary, don’t feel like they belong in the 21st century. The abundance of intact gothic, renaissance, and baroque architecture places these two cities in a sort of limbo in time. Despite the recent explosion in popularity […]
By Taylor Krzeminski In Central Europe, memorialization of lost life during and after the Third Reich rarely centers on how to remember, but who is worth remembering. Places of remembrance often engage in rewriting history – distancing citizens from complicity under fascist and communist parties as times of ‘foreign occupation’. Besides small acknowledgements of the impact […]