The Dream. The Reality. The Nightmare.

“If you ever live in a place and the government decides to ‘re-educate’ the population…leave! Re-education is usually good for the guys in charge and not so good for everyone else. ” ~Jerry Knafelc (my AP Geography teacher.)

Feb. 14, 2013
As of today I’ve spent 5 nights in the Golden City. After 5 nights, I can say with absolute certainty…I am still jet lagged.

I’ve been going to bed sometime between 12-1am here. I then wake up about 5am completely wide awake. I’ll toss and turn a little, usually get a little water or read a little. I eventually get back to sleep sometime between 6am and 7am and then sleep until 10 or 11am. This has typically worked in my favor since nothing seemed to open in the city until around that time frame anyway.

Today was no exception. I got up at 11:00. Aaron was still asleep. I reached over and grabbing my laptop off the floor tried again to upload pictures to the internet. I got about 15 saved before the Wi-Fi died. When it rebooted, they were no longer there. I decided that I would play with the picture features on my blog more tonight and mess with Facebook later. I settled with changing my profile and cover photos and got two more posts uploaded to the blog.

I got up and attempted to boil some water to make tea. After nearly fifteen minutes, it still wasn’t boiling. I felt the pot; it wasn’t warm. I stuck my finger in the water; it was room temperature. Lifting the pot, I put my palm flat on the burner; it was warm, but hardly. Maybe cooking wasn’t going to be possible.

I gave up on tea, but didn’t pour the water out. When Aaron woke up, we rode the tram into town. Just as we pulled away from the station, my heart jumped. “Oh shoot!” I said. “I forgot to turn the stove off!”

“Oh,” Aaron said. “Hopefully it won’t catch fire to anything.”

“Yea,” I said. “I doubt that it could. I touched the burner and it wasn’t very warm. If anything, it might make the area around the kitchen hot, but that’s it.”

Stupid American.

We got off the tram at Wenceslas Square. We’d signed up the night before to take a tour of the Museum of Communism. Aaron had looked up directions and had them written on a sheet of notebook paper (eliminated the tourist look of opening a map up on the street) and we navigated to the entrance. It was a very unassuming building, tucked in a back alley of Wenceslas Square. Outside, we met Tonya our tour guide. She was from Russia. Several other students I’d met briefly throughout the week were there, in addition to a few new students from Canada, Italy, and Russia.

The museum was actually on the second story of the building we’d met outside. We each paid the woman at the front desk 150 Koruna and went inside.

The exhibit was amazing! Each of the placards next to the displays was in six languages (Czech, English, Russian, French, Italian, and Spanish.) There were photos, statues, and displays showcasing how life evolved over the last 100 years in Prague.

The explanation started at the end of World War I, when Czechoslovakia was formed out of part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the Great Depression hit in the United States, the economy of Czechoslovakia was hurt as well. Some of the leaders began gravitating towards the teaching of Marx and Lenin. At the same time, Hungary made many attempts to reclaim the lost land. The threat from Hungary however paled in comparison to the threat from Germany. Once Britain and France gave up the Sudetenland to Hitler during the Munich Conference, Hitler was able to move troops in capture Czechoslovakia, dividing it into Bohemia (the region around Prague), Moravia (another region in modern the Czech Republic), and Slovakia.

The allies eventually liberated Czechoslovakia from the Nazi’s, although the Soviet Union took credit for the victory. Czechoslovakia was returned to its prewar state, with a small region of it being given to Soviet control. Elections were held across the country and the Communist Party won in the Czech regions and the Democratic Party won in the Slovak regions. The country agreed to have both parties lead, although the Czech Communist Party was more organized and quickly rose to dominance. As the party rose, the economy continued to collapse.

The whole display initially struck me as a little funny. Looking at the various events and people involved in the Communist takeover, I was struck oddly by the fact that they all seemed to be doing their best. None of them looked or sounded openly evil. Reading their speeches and notes, it was clear they honestly believed what they were doing was for the good of the people. The problem seemed to be, the more successful they were at implementing their policies, the more detached they became from some of the problems they had set out to solve. They were so surrounded by opportunity that they forgot what life was like outside of leadership.

About midway through the exhibit, there was a door that led to an outside patio with additional, optional displays. Pulling my beanie down over my ears, I stepped outside to take a look. The patio was surrounded by cement, communistic buildings. Unintentionally I’m sure, there was the sound of someone pounding metal with a hammer. The eerie sound echoed around the small courtyard and sent shivers down my spine.

Back inside, there were more displays on how the Czech Communist Party controlled the population. I did chuckle at a display that said they maintained control by promising that “change was not easy, but everyone would benefit in the end.” Ironically also, one of the weakening forces in the communists control of the population was rock music from America—specifically Country Western music. People found it so catchy; it was hard to hate Americans.

“Imagine no possessions/ It’s wonder if you can/ No need for greed or hunger/ A brotherhood of man.” ~John Lennon, Imagine

The next room had a movie showcasing the Soviets invasion and occupation of Prague. Since the party had never gained full control of the country and the economy was still weakening, the soviets sent in troops in 1968 to ensure Czechoslovakia did not fall from communistic control. The video was as disturbing as the outdoor exhibits had been, but for an entirely different reason.

I watched footage of soldiers, police, and other government officials. They said things to the cameramen like, “They are OUR citizens. We shall treat them as such and remind them of this fact. The used heavy metal shields to control crowds. They used sticks and dogs to attack people. The opened fire hoses on groups to disperse them.

But the torture wasn’t what was disturbing about the film (I mean it was, but it wasn’t what unnerved my brain.) What disturbed me was where the torture was happening. All of the footage—from the tanks rolling into town, to the armies marching out of caravans, to the beats and shooting—it was all taking place in Wenceslas Square. Buildings I had been in, walked past, photographed, and admired. The ornate cobblestone roads had been the stage for this oppressive revolution.

For some odd reason, for the first time since I’d left home, I didn’t feel safe anymore. I realized I was in part of the world that had scared my grandparents’ and even my parents’ generation.  Just 21 years ago, this place had been scene to one of the most violent and oppressive dictatorships on Earth. It was an occupation and a takeover that had happened virtually overnight. Now I was gallivanting around the same streets as though the city couldn’t touch me. Thinking back on the footage even now makes my stomach turn.

The Soviet control of Prague lasted from 1968 until 1989. Called the Velvet Revolution, people gathered again in Wenceslas Square to protest the oppression. For whatever reason, the police and armies positioned for attack, but never did. Within days, the Soviets gave up and freed the people. One year later, President George H.W. Bush commemorated the event by speaking in Wenceslas Square and dedicating a “Freedom Bell” to the country as a promise that the US would always protect and defend Czechoslovakia. In 1993, Czechoslovakia went through a second peaceful protest “this time called the Velvet Divorce, and split into the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

Walking out of the museum and back into the friendly streets did put my mind at ease. The ground now felt sacred and the air seemed to carry a new importance about it. I looked up at the statues, monuments, and buildings around the square with new reverence. History felt different in a way it never had before. Life wasn’t as black and white, as good and evil as it has once seemed. I was falling more and more in love with this city with everything I learned about it.