Svitavy

One of the main reasons I applied for the Fulbright award was to experience European history first hand. Maybe that doesn't logically work, since one cannot really "experience" history. Regardless, history confronts us here daily, and our trip to Svitavy was no exception.


Svitavy is best known as the town where Oskar Schindler was born and raised. If you have not yet seen Steven Spielberg's Holocaust film "Schindler's List," then you might not have as much appreciation for this entry as you would if you had seen it. I would then suggest that you rent the film, for while it is a difficult movie to watch, I do think it demonstrates the redeeming qualities of humanity in spite of great evil. Sometimes we need to be reminded of the strength, courage, and selflessness humans are capable of - traits Oskar Schindler demonstrated by the end of WWII.

Behind the memorial is the childhood home of Oskar Schindler

Now - again - a bit of a history lesson is needed here I think. Svitavy is a town that was once part of the Sudentenland - Czech land that was largely settled by Germans for centuries. Hence the reason why Schindler, a German, was born in a Czech village. You may recall, but probably not since many textbooks conveniently leave out this piece of history, that after WWII all Germans were forcibly deported out of Czechoslovakia. Since Svitavy was 85% German, the town was pretty much abandoned and inhabited only by the remaining 10% of Czechs. The missing 5% was the Jewish population, which were all killed in the death camps. In 1948, the Soviets took over and because Svitavy had available housing, it became a stronghold for the Communist Party. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Svitavy has been able to look at its past a bit and to claim its German Native Son - Oskar Schindler.

Svitavy has a lovely museum with one floor dedicated to Schindler's life and at the end, there's a small section that highlights Spielberg's film. One of the many moving scenes in the film comes at the end, when the actors accompany the Jews they portray to put a stone on Schindler's grave, which is located in Israel.
Interestingly enough, the very factory that Schindler owned and operated for the sake of those 1200 Jews is just south of Svitavy, but there is absolutely nothing that commemorates this history. The factory is still in operation and now makes industrial fabrics instead of defunct artillery shells. We walked down the same ally, stood next to the same gate that swung open for the Jews, and looked at the very building that housed Schindler's office. Here they are below.

The ally

The gate
And Schindler's office

Here are-what was once-the living quarters for Schindler's Jews.
One last picture - the very railroad tracks the Jews traveled on from Auschwitz.
OK - maybe I'm being silly to show such mundane images. But I tend to believe that it's the small, tangible things that help us better grasp the gravity of history - of our own small, seemingly benign actions towards people. A simple train track can symbolize anything, but in this case, it symbolizes the path to redemption for not only the 1200 Jews, but for the one soul who risked his life and fortune to save them.