We woke up early this morning so that our cousin Jana could take us on a tour of several synagogues in the Jewish ghetto. The first one we visited, Pinkas synagogue, is a memoriam to the 80,000 men, women and children of Bohemia and Moravia who died in the Holocaust. In the 1950's, the names of each one of these people was inscribed on the wall, with their date of birth and date of death.
Normally when you visit a site that honors a tragic event in history, you have a sense of compassion, but from the distanced view of your modern life. In this place, there are the names of four of our family members on the wall. Seeing those names - suddenly, we were no longer removed from the event, but a part of it. The feeling when you see it is hard to describe. I was very moved, and deeply saddened. I can only imagine how Jana felt, seeing the names of those so close to her and being reminded of that time once again.
