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 […]
By Maddie Hartog “After every war someone has to tidy up. Things won’t pick themselves up, after all.” (The End and the Beginning, Wislawa Szymborska) If you ask me about my study abroad, I will say I am studying in Wroclaw, Poland, where the people speak Polish, pierogies are abundant, and Zabka convenience stores can […]
By Suryansh Singh Situated alongside the serpentine banks of the River Spree, Treptower Park Soviet War Memorial stands as an ornament placed within the region’s natural beauty, adding to the altar of the history of the city of Berlin. While many of the other remnants of the city’s Soviet past have been reclaimed through spray-paint graffiti […]
By Abigail Wright In the final stretch of our visit to Birkenau, former Nazi concentration and extermination camp, we knelt down and beheld the natural unearthing of history, of a story that could fit in the palm of our hands. At ground level, rusted silverware and charred pots piled into a glass enclosure with other […]