By Anna Meehan When I was young, my favorite book was “A History of the Baltic States” by Andres Kasekamp. If that sounds odd to you, I must agree – it’s not the average pick for a teenage girl. Macmillan describes it as “an essential textbook for undergraduate students taking modules on Eastern or Central […]
By Sofia DaCruz In northeastern Poland, on the border of Lithuania, lies a small and unique town called Sejny. Sejny, like most towns in Poland, experienced the devastation of World War II both in the literal destruction of its infrastructure and the murder of its Jewish population. Yet, unlike most places in Poland, a group […]
By Sierra Kaplan The stories we hear as kids remain in our memory throughout our lifetimes. What we learn from classic tales like The Boy Who Cried Wolf or Goldilocks and the Three Bears frames our current moral compass, shaping our behaviors and beliefs. As we get older, history classes and the media act similarly, […]
By Ian Eisenbrand When moving through the streets and alleyways of Central Europe, you are constantly exposed to graffiti, with walls serving as a teeming public forum. Fragmented voices of anonymous protest cascade down cities’ walls in an almost overwhelming stream of political discourse. In my travels through Central Europe, I became fixated on the constrained […]
By Leanne Rivera Today according to the EU Multimedia Center, about ten to twelve million Roma people live in Europe, yet only a small percentage of Europeans have any understanding of their customs, their past, or their ways of life. Even worse, the majority population is not only uninformed but overtly prejudiced against them. This […]
By Sierra Kaplan 800 stairs down, 135 meters deep, 3.5 kilometers long. For the one million sightseers who visit the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland every year, these are the extreme lengths taken to complete the journey, and our program eagerly embarked on this tour. However, unlike my peers, I learned these numbers in fear; […]
By Andrew Emerson Throughout human history there is no shortage of places of tragedy. Brutality and slaughter have followed humankind wherever we have traveled and the spaces where these actions occur often become haunting reminders of infinite human cruelty. What happens to those who remain, those who call these spaces home and have to grapple with […]
By Anna Meehan Soviet memorials can be encountered across Central Europe. Recognizing the victories and sacrifices of the Red Army during the Second World War, these memorials honor a regime which spread across Central and Eastern Europe for the last half of the 20th century. In the Soviet Union and in Russia today, World War II […]
By Kennedy Snyder Throughout our travels and studies, we have visited many memorials and heard about all different kinds of atrocities. At every memorial, we walk in with solemn minds full of thoughts about those whose lives were lost, and reason behind the memorial. We read the list of names, or look at the art that […]
By Charlotte Goodman Jew (jü) Noun 1. a person belonging to a continuation through descent or conversion of the ancient Jewish people Jew (joo) Adjective 2. Offensive. of Jews; Jewish. “Citizens of German descent and Jews who enter marriages or extra-marital affairs with members of the other group will be imprisoned. As of today, mixed marriages […]