ranty

31512 after our morning class we had a tour hosted by a survivor of the work camp we were scheduled to visit, František Zahrádka (from now on, this man will be refered to as "he" a he was telling us stories). first we stopped in Příbram, a small town which housed the museum to the Third Czechoslovak resistance. the First being, the free czech legions fighting the Hapsburgs, via the Italian and French Armies, the Second fought the Nazis, and the Third resistance, were the communist resistance movement, only officially recognized in 2011 though the small museum we walked through dates back to 92. He worked with the resistance smuggling the czech RAF pilots out of the country to help them avoid the persecution by the new communist regime, cause you know, obvioulsy if they worked with the RAF (training Israeli pilots they were against the commies). He worked closely with american agents in Germany to achieve this. Real fear of WWIII breaking out as communism rolls through eastern europe, the situation in berlin particularly. Because of this many of the dissidents and resistance members, did not care for the length of sentence, they figured the war would start and they would be freed eventually by the victorious West anyways. He was 19 when he was shipped to the labor camp, where he was sentenced to 20 years of his life. The only reason he didnt recieve the death penalty was because the year before the government passed a law forbidding the execution of any under age of 20. He ultimately only spent 13 yrs in the camps. After his sentence was served, with his parents dead, he had no where to go, so he signed on with the uranium mining outfit which he worked for as a prisoner, as a qualified electrician. He worked till retirement at this mine.

While there were many who actively resisted, and were "punished", there were people who didnt cooperate with the communists, who were punished in the same fashion so the inmates in the forced labor camps were very different. The Germans actually did the original surveying noting there was uranium here. The Soviets were desperate to get the uranium to develop their one nuke program, and they subsequently pushed the czech communisnts to get the land. The Nazis had plans to reclaim the uranium, and started lying down the infrastructure necessary, but never got around to it as the war ended. In 1947 the russians brought in German POWs to do the work. By 1949, the German POWs were returned to Germany, and the labor was replaced with Czech subversives. Random facts about the camp: These mines produced very rich uranium veins, but the area also had silver and lead deposits. Some of the shafts went down to 1800m. Housed 1800-2000 inmates. it is a little disjointed, these were notes i took as he spoke to us (via a Charles University history professor translation), being a cool old guy, his stories and information came out a little haphazard, id prefer to keep it as is. He really wanted to note that there were good people, guards and civilian workers that did small things to make life easier, a scrap of food here, or a letter smuggled there, and from this pool of good people, there were those that went beyond and helped inmates to escape as well. this camp was very different from the Nazi labor camps, i didnt feel that collective guilt that was imposed in the facility yesterday, this guy lived through this, for a number of years, and he told us stories of his friends being shot before his eyes, or being beaten to within an inch of his life. but he seems to have come to terms with it, the Communist system which abused him and his people so, is over and done, and while i will never forget, he doesnt strive to remember. i know that sounds weird, but i feel like he isnt dwelling on the tragedies of the past, its something he acknowledges, and conveys to us (future generations) as bad, but he believes that like he did, we will do what we can to prevent anything like that from happening again. whereas in the Holocaust memorial stuff, i feel like i am just being emotionally berated, i mean, both of my grandparents were members of the US military through WWII, they actively endeavored against the Nazis in some way or another, i have no genealogical connection to the Holocaust (victim or victimizer) but i end up walking away from these places often times feeling guilty. and i chalk that up to the memorial/museum not being done well, i have mentioned a few that were well done, and i notice now that it is because i walk away sobered certainly, but also learned, not just feeling shitty. this kinda came up in class as well, we talked about Lidice and the concentration camp visits, and people mentioned how powerful it was to see that, and i brought up the point that the Lidice was a really good example for us, Lidice wasnt just the Nazis killing Jews (again not to lessen the tragedy of the systematic destruction of an entire people), it was a reprisal against the Czech people. WWII specifically, but accross history, there are countless accounts of tragedy visited upon a people for some reason (be it "legitimate" or not). i feel like we get caught up on the Holocaust alot, but then forget the historical genocide of the Irish, Native Americans, Albanians, and the Muhajir to name a few. basically, im sayin the world is a shitty place, memorials are good, but they most come with at least objectivity, and hopefully forgiveness.