By Jacqueline Murrer The town of Oshpitsin sits in the south of Poland, and was founded nearly 800 years ago. Today it is home to about 39,000 people, and has its fair share of cafés, and a revitalized city center. Though it has been around for hundreds of years, it’s history from the 720 years before […]
By April Dvorak Throughout my studies in Central Europe, the history and commemoration of the Holocaust and WWII have been dominant themes I encountered. It was only until I visited the African Quarter in Berlin that my studies expanded beyond the atrocities Nazi Germany committed in Central Europe. In the African Quarter, I visited the […]
By Luke Burke Soviet domination of Eastern and Central Europe stretched so far across so many borders for a majority of the 20th century, thus its place in the identity of nations affected by it can never be discounted or forgotten. With that being said, how are places like Poland and East Germany, heavily impacted […]
By Hannah Gavin As we are coming to the end of our travels abroad, I have been reflecting on the different countries we visited. Each of these countries involved in the Holocaust have chosen to remember their histories as perpetrators, collaborators or victims of the Nazi regime in distinctly different ways. The one nation that […]
By Esmé Rummelhart An anthropologist-in-training, I am eager to learn how the political landscape of Central Europe today intertwines with its history, and with the cultures and identities of its people. Though it is sometimes difficult for me to understand, governments here seem to lean further and further to the right, backed by public acceptance […]
By Caroline Simon During World War II, Warsaw was the center of Polish civilization and became “the center of urban resistance to Nazi rule in occupied Europe.”[1] In the summer of 1944, it had the largest uprising the war saw. The uprising did not emerge from thin air, however; there was a long buildup of […]
By Kate Christie You’re a child, living in Poland pre-World War II. For many of you, life was good. Many of you’d wake up every morning, in a home that you and your family shared. You’d, later, leave home for school—“goodbye”, with fleeting kisses to your cheeks. You’d study math, science, and literature. You may […]
By Zoe Fruchter In Poland, the presence of this many synagogues is extraordinary. The majority of synagogues in this country have been destroyed by pogroms, obliterated by bombing in World War II, abandoned and left to crumble in disrepair, or repurposed for other uses now that the large majority of Poland’s Jewish population is gone. […]
By Madison Bollart For the past couple of months I had been looking forward to our trip to Berlin. However, this would not be my first time in the city. A few years ago I visited on my own, not with any intention other than to be a tourist. I had booked the trip knowing […]
By Cesar Gray We live much of our lives enclosed in walls, and for many of us living in free societies, those walls can actually be quite the comfort. I’d go out on a limb and say most of us don’t frequently think about the walls we live in. Many are unassuming structures, and save […]