The Third Man is one of those rare films where the backdrop to the story almost becomes a character in and of itself whose tone, look, and disposition plays off the characters and their hopes and dreams. Vienna is depicted as a lifeless, dismal city where crime and the loss of moral rectitude has become all pervasive in a city where only a dark sense of humor can overcome the myriad of moral implications that arise just by living in the city. One of the most famous tours in Austria is the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg and it could be said that The Third Man tour in Vienna would be its direct antithesis. Both tours deal with American films set in Austria but while one describes the optimism and strength of a family set against the larger bulwark of encroaching fascism, the other is about the individual becoming compressed by a devolving dog-eat-dog society where tiny bits of paper can decide will your future. I didn’t go on either of these tours on this trip but I feel the tonal differences both films present would do much to show two separate ways the state of Austria has been depicted on film. Surprisingly, the Viennese have embraced The Third Man, warts and all, as an important historical piece showing what life was like after the war in a city split between the four Allied powers. I first saw The Third Man when I was in about ninth grade and I became an immediate admirer of the film’s dark tone. I especially thought Orson Welles does an excellent job as the slimy Harry Lime who is able to hide his inner evil through his chummy disposition and talent for oratory. But after visiting Vienna and seeing the film a second time you can truly appreciate just what was filmed in this city all the way back in 1949. It is a credit to the filmmakers that they were able to capture on location this fully realized world where daily life has been completely turned upside down to the whims of foreign governments and black market peddlers. Having an interest in film I decided to go out on my own and visit what I could of Vienna’s many Third Man. Besides seeing the movie for a second time, I also visited the Third Man Museum, a treasure trove of documents, accounts, and artifacts both from the film and from the history of post-war Vienna. The museum also gave some fascinating details about how the screenplay was written and what actual real life events and people corresponded with the post-war world the film came to symbolize. Upon the entrance to the museum you visit a number of rooms displaying the success of The Third Man, ranging from pulp fiction books as well as a number of famous bands and individual musicians trying to create their own version of the famous zither score. In fact, the museum actually holds the original zither that was used to create the mood of the film and is considered the museum’s most precious artifact. Besides these pop culture displays there was also a showcase of the critical accolades the film received upon its opening and then afterwards. The BFI or British Film Institute named The Third Man the greatest British film ever made (it gets British credit because of its screenwriter, the great Graham Greene, whose credentials also include several novels that were later turned into films as well). Some of the other rooms had exhibits more pertinent to our study of Austrian history. One room contained a history of pre-war Austria during the civil war that ensued the election and later assassination of Chancellor Dollfuss. The other room shows the post-war history of Vienna and the different political frictions that began to arise among the major powers inside the city. The amount of documents and objects from the time period are great to look at. They show everything from letters to uniforms, newspapers to identification cards, food slips and photographs. One of the most intriguing and ironic parts of post-war Vienna was the destroyed economy that forced many to use the same products from the Nazi period. The most expressive example of this dark irony was stamps. Since the government could not make any new ones, the Viennese had to use the old Hitler stamps that consequently had his ugly mug sticking out of every letter. Many of these stamps then had a giant X slashed through with the words Osterreich written on top. The mere fact that the people of Vienna had to resort to these stamps shows the amazing decrepitude of the economy. Other objects in the room explained how soldiers from the allied powers worked together to obtain some sense of common cause even while the higher ups were contemplating how to spy on one another. What these rooms presented were the larger ideas that came out of The Third Man: the imagery of Vienna and the reality of bureaucracy all rolled together into a surreal look at the comprehensive incompetence of the world powers. One of the last and most devastating things to see in the exhibit were the pictures of all the major sights I had grown to know and live during my time here in Vienna. The post-war pictures of the Kunsthistoriches Museum, the Belvedere, and the Schonnbrunn, with gaping holes and total destruction all around them were depressing to view. So much history had gone on behind those walls and in an instant they were totally destroyed with they had known and seen. Vienna has reconstructed much of these old sights but when you actually see how devastated they looked after the war, you get the feeling that the cultural of the Austrian people was completely destroyed and with it their moral compass. This is a great leap in assumption but based on the characters we meet in the film and the images of the great historical centers of culture in Vienna lying in ruins you get the sense that any hope of rebuilding, both architecturally and emotionally, were cut down by the needs of those cynical souls trying to make a living in the diaspora of what many call Europe Year Zero. One of the interesting side notes about creating the film was that Grahan Greene focused the character of Harry Lime on one of his close confidants and friends in British intelligence. The man was named Kim Philby and at the beginning of the Cold War it became apparent that Philby had become a spy for the Russians. Greene grew aware of this before his superiors did and he had a crisis of conscience as to how to go about this situation. Should he betray his friend and serve his country or serve his country and betray his friend. In the end, Greene retired from the service and thus attempted to rid himself of the moral debacle and turn to writing. The relationship between Joseph Cotten’s protagonist and Orson Welles’s Lime holds many similarities with this real life case of moral debate. Both are set within the confines of the Cold War and both deal with a man coming to terms with the fact that his best friend has turned into something he never thought possible. Neither Lime nor Philby are presented as evil, in fact, both are seen as charming and sociable but lost in their own personal aspirations for wealth and power in the material world. I found these historical comparisons wonderful because they make so much sense when you actually study the real events and then contrast them with the characters in the film. The other major site of the film that we visited as a class was the ferris wheel in the Prater where Orson Welles gives arguably the most famous speech in history of cinema. His brutal assessment of the world and how progress can only come with violence and death is one of the great speeches of the movies and one Welles actually improvised on the set. He discusses how Italy, a country racked by war throughout the renaissance brought some of the greatest artistic and cultural treasures to light in human history while Switzerland, a nation of peace and prosperity with “brotherly-love for nearly five hundred years” brought nothing more to human development than the cuckoo clock. Actually seeing the real ferris wheel is quite a sight. It was renovated since the film but it is still interesting to know that this was the site of Welles famous speech. When you enter the visitors center adjacent to the ferris wheel you see a number of models showing what happened on the site throughout Vienna’s history. The post war diorama is especially interesting since it shows the ferris wheel standing alone with the rest of the city in flames and rubble in the background. These images convey what was actually filmed in 1949 and give the visitor both a sense of the decimation as well as irony of paying money back then just to get a bird’s eye view of the destruction. When going up the ferris wheel today you have a much more joyful experience. It shows you a good deal of Vienna as well as some of the more residential areas that you don’t see when you’re in the city. The ferris wheel is also right by the Prater theme park which is a colorful little place with lots of roller coasters and log flumes for young children to enjoy. The theme park reminded me more of an American boardwalk with its low budget, yet nonetheless, wholesome rides that the entire family can enjoy. There isn’t that stamp of commercial control over the area like in Disneyland or Six Flags and this gives the Prater nice retro feel that is absent from much of America today. The whole environment had an ironic optimism about itself. There were children scampering everywhere and all the rides had lights and sound effects blaring in every direction, quite the opposite of a dilapidated landscape where Harry Lime asks his friend whether he would feel any remorse if one little dot in a sea of thousands simply disappeared. Actually getting to go on the ferris wheel was something and its beautiful view definitely belied the dark tone of Welles’s exchange with Cotten on their way up to the top of the amusement attraction. I know it was this scene, from the moment we finally meet Lime to the end of the ride when he gives his great speech that made me love The Third Man and it was great to visit the actual sites of the film in a city that has been entirely reconstructed out of its past. The film is a hallmark of so many things, from British cinema to the genre of noir, and the importance the film holds today as a primary source of what life was like in post-war Vienna makes it all the more historically enriching. It’s a film that goes right into the heart of Europe’s problems and America’s naïve understanding of it. Why else would Cotton’s character write pulp fiction? There are so many avenues of study that can be made from the film, both historically and cinematically that it seems one could never exhaust all the possible discussions the film presents. It’s fascinating to realize that we can find so much from a film set in a world of rubble.

The German word of the day is fussball, or in English, soccer.

Vienna holds a lot of great history and cultural importance and one of the things that make it so interesting is the city’s ability to reinvent itself artistically.  There were many architectural changes going on throughout Europe during the nineteenth century especially with Haussmann’s creation of modern Paris and London’s expansion into a modern city.  Vienna was also accompanying these civic changes and as time went on more contemporary techniques were initiated to give the city the feel of a modern, cosmopolitan city.  Many of the changes that occurred happened along the Ringstrasse, during an artistic time known as the Jugendstil, or art deco movement of the early twentieth century.  The buildings were all created with a vision of modernity because the architects of the time felt constrained by the constant need to reinvent the architectural styles of other ages.  They were tired of churches, government institutions, schools, hospitals, and all other types of buildings being built to reiterate Gothic or Classical architecture.  The likes of Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt made efforts to form their own architectural styles so that others would know the people of fin de siècle Vienna could create new and impressive forms of architecture just as their forefathers did centuries ago.

The buildings along the ringstrasse that contain the imprints of Jugendstil range from simple housing projects all the way to metro platforms and schools.  There look is generally simple, with little emphasis on the windows or walls to catch the viewers’ attention.  What these buildings do have though, and one that succeeds in fascinating the public, is specified detail along the sides of gold patchwork that succeeds in catching one’s eye.  These buildings thus emphasized modernism while simultaneously evoking a style of minimalist beauty that separates from the rest of the modern buildings of Vienna.  The trip I took along the ringstrasse showed many of these Jugendstil buildings as well as some of the neoclassical and neo-gothic monuments running along the border of the innerstadt.  These buildings include the parliament, which is based on Greek classical design and thus evokes a sense of democratic principles.  You can also see nearby several other churches that contain elements of the neo-gothic style.  Thus, the city is filled with a variety of different styles as well as the Baroque-styled apartments that run throughout the city as well.  Most of the buildings were already sites that I had been in contact with before I went on the ringstrasse but it was still interesting to pinpoint the exact differences that made the architecture of the Jugendstil and the Succession movement so captivating and liberating from the conformity of the old styles.

One of the other activities that I made time to visit was the Vienna museum outside the Karlskirche, which delivers the history of Vienna from its time as the Roman border town of Vindobona all the way to the outbreak of the First World War.  Most of the exhibits on hand were from excavated sites showing what had been found from Vienna’s past.  There were cups, helmets, and assorted other trinkets from Roman times that help you realize just how long ago human beings had called this part of Austria home.  The Roman exhibits then change to Austria in the Medieval Age and this was one of the areas of the museum with the most fascinating objects because they have nearly all the original statues from Stephansdome that were taken for safekeeping and thus saved when the church was destroyed during the Second World War.  These statues depicted different saints and Biblical figures and though they were not in any type of pristine condition, the fact that these were the originals from centuries ago was quite something to see.  The rest of the objects in the room were stain glass windows that I believe were also originals from the Stephansdome and these too showed the beauty of Viennese craftsmanship during the medieval era.

The next area of importance was the section on the siege of Vienna.  The museum focuses closely on the siege of 1683 and of course, this was the one that held so much pride for the Viennese and Austrian people.  The Turks, under the leadership of Kara Mustafa were defeated by the military might of the Austrians and the help of their Polish allies.  These events stopped all Ottoman advances on Europe and stemmed the tide of Eastern aggrandizement of Europe.  Following these events, the great general Eugene of Savoy was able to defeat the Turks at Belgrade and thus slowly and slowly territory was brought back into Habsburg power.  The objects on display were similar to those at the Heeresgeschichtliche military museum but there was a greater focus on maps and celebratory drawings from the time depicting the Habsburg victory.  These objects gave the battle a sense of reality; they gave you the realization that there were people actually living in this city and that they were on the precipice of Turkish expansion.  There was nothing left to do but fight.  While the military museum gives you the swords and shields, the Vienna museum shows you non-military objects from the siege that put into context all that was going on during this time.  Following this exhibit the museum goes through the growing fashions and political ideas of the eighteenth century until one finally reaches Napoleon but the exhibits on this time period were fairly weak.  But the next section is on the Biedermeier period, which is especially interesting.  In class, we compared the Biedermeier to the 1950’s and the sense of ignorance that pervaded entertainment at that time.  The paintings show life at its most pleasant and ignore the political turmoil that was going on during this time.  I must admit that I like the look of Biedermeier, regardless of its historical problems.  The style reminds me of paintings by Norman Rockwell, which idealize the world but nonetheless paint it with a kind of detail unmatched by other works of art.  I felt this style even had several subgenres.  There the family paintings, the everyday life and entertainment pictures, and then there were the landscape and outdoorsman ones that showed the beauty of the country and Austria’s citizens at work in nature, cutting down trees or fishing, all to make ends meet.  These romanticized images were probably pathetic at the time but now, with no emotional connection to the 1830’s, I have to admit I found a charming and relaxing quality to these works that seem oblivious to the social turmoil about to spread during 1848.

Speaking of which, the 1848 section of the museum is another military exhibit showing the different sides of soldier and nobility against student and liberal.  There were a number of rifles on display and much was made of the constant debate over the different calls for freedom being made at this time.  The confounding element to these revolutions for the Habsburgs was that they happened not only in their own state of Austria but also in her satellite kingdoms, making political transparency all but impossible.  The museum did not linger on the revolutions going on in Hungary and Austrian controlled Italy but the mere fact that this empire had to face a number of other revolutions while they were trying to suppress the one at home makes the events of 1848 quite intriguing to study.

The last bit of the museum focused on fin de siècle Vienna and the rising middle class that took root during the time.  The displays mainly had clothing and household devices showing how interests in easing peoples’ lives had changed from the nobility down to the average Viennese citizen.  What is ironic is the fact that the museum basically ends here.  There is nothing about Vienna during or between the world wars and with the exception of a small room on 1950’s architecture, the museum basically ignores all the upheavals that happened to the city during the first half of the twentieth century.  The museum did its best to avoid all political issues, not even willing to discuss the divide happening between liberal Vienna and conservative outer Austria, even in the fin de siècle period.  I can’t say I was totally surprised since the Budapest museum had the same type of gap but these missing parts of history don’t do any good if a country is trying to come to terms with what happened to itself.

It will be interesting to see when Austria, like the many other axis powers or their allies will finally come to grips with their past.  If you visit a museum about California’s history, you won’t see the museum suddenly end in 1933 without going on to discuss California’s modern history.  This becomes a controversial issue because Germany and other states in Europe have done their best to exonerate themselves, not from their crimes, but from their present place in the world as a kind and benign power.  Even with these interests there is still a “hush hush” mentality that hasn’t helped countries like Austria look like they’ve fully come to terms with the events between 1938-1945.  It will be interesting to see if sixty years from now when all the veterans and survivors have passed away whether Austria will truly have a legitimate approach to studying its history during the Nazi occupation.  I just find it so fascinating that a country does all it can to make it school children understand the Holocaust and set up monuments to combat the fulfillment of war and racism and yet their museums can’t describe events in their country’s past that probably would be important, especially to a museum about the history of Vienna.  The war itself saw little expressive changes besides a loss of civil rights and national war footing but I would think the museum would want to discuss the aftermath.  Vienna was nearly completely ruined and the disturbing pictures of its ruined monuments has at least some historical value.  The splitting of the country by the allied powers also would be an important event to document in the museum but hear again there was nothing to explain to visitors.  What I would like to know now is whether the Berlin museum (I assume there is a Berlin Museum) would go over both the Nazi period and the post war split of the city since the aftermath of the war in Berlin shares so many similarities with Vienna.  Whatever the case may be I think it can only be assumed that true comprehension of the war will only exist after those who witnessed and even those who had fathers and mothers witnessing these events have passed on.  When the socia and personal connection has been lost, then truly impartial discussions can begin, which is sad, since this also means we would lose the first hand accounts that have played such an important role in today’s society in explaining everything that happened during the war.  Maybe countries like Austria can come to terms with themselves in the near future but the Vienna Museum was a good indication of the problems that still exist in Viennese society over how to present the war to both its citizens and international visitors. 

Overall, the Vienna museum had some amazing exhibits that may not have addressed any new information but definitely had objects on display that I could ponder over.  I thought that some of the original work from Stephansdome made the trip worth it alone because so much of the church has been remodeled off of what it used to look like.  The other important part of the museum for me was the Biedermeier exhibit, which gave you a taste of romanticized life while also doing so in intricate detail.  These paintings seemed focused on portraying its characters so realistically that one would be bound to accept the validity of its representations.  Nonetheless, these two areas of the museum were of great interest to me and added to everything else in the museum about Vienna’s rise as a small Roman settlement to the capital of one of the largest royal empires in Europe.  Both the museum and the ringstrasse give you an idea of just how far this city has come and to live in it for a whole month really makes you appreciate the sheer scope of history that has existed within the confines of these city walls.    

The German word of the day is gesund, or in English, healthy

I had never visited a concentration camp before I entered the gates at Mauthausen.  I had studied the Holocaust and had known the many intricacies of life in these despicable camps but I had never studied with my own eyes what happened here during the Second World War.  I was surprised when I got out of the bus to see what looked like a medieval castle made out of stone.  This seemed far from the barbed wire, guard posts, and the synonymous signs that said Arbeit macht Frei of my schooling.  From the parking lot there was nothing outside that suggested this was a workers camp during the war where thousands had died.  Nonetheless, it was soon learned that the stone exterior was actually built by the inmates themselves and so this innocuous building in the middle of the rolling hills of Austria still holds a distinct malevolence to itself.  Near the front one can see a plaque commemorating the American soldiers who liberated the camp in 1945.  Everyone knows that the American Army, as well as the armies of the allied nations, liberated the Nazi concentration camps but to see a sign honoring your countrymen for what they did so long ago is still somewhat stirring to view.  After going up a flight of stairs from this first monument you enter a park filled with statues and monuments commemorating the different nations who were victimized under the Nazis at the camp.  Mauthausen was quite different from other camps because the majority of its prisoners were captured soldiers rather than Jews.  Jews were only sent to the camp towards the end of the war when Heinrich Himmler made it clear that the death camps in the east had to be destroyed before the Red Army discovered them.  The amount of nationalities interned at Mauthausen is staggering, with men and women from nations not only under German occupation but also from countries allied to Germany or countries at war with the Axis nations.  You have statues and plaques for the Russians, Italians, French, Spanish, Hungarians, Romanians, Norwegians, Albanians, Dutch, Greeks, British, Americans, Bulgarians, and even the Germans themselves.  The amount of nations that commemorate their dead gives you an idea of the scale of German aggrandizement during the Second World War and the staggering casualties from the war.

After walking around the outer part of the camp for about half an hour we were given a tour of the barracks that held the prisoners before they were sent to the quarry to dig and then transport the stones up hundreds of loosely built steps.  The guide showed us how an inmate was brought into the camp and how he or she was almost given a baptismal of sorts in which all sense of humanity was taken away from them.  They were released of their clothes, their hair, and most importantly, their name.  They were now only a number in the eyes of the Germans and their similar appearances made them look less human, almost like clones, entirely absent of any human qualities.  It is surprising to realize just how important our outward appearance is to showing our humanity.  By looking different, by having different hair, or skin, or height and weight, we acquire differences that allow people to recognize us and therefore see us as another of the six and a half billion people on this earth.  But the Nazis were entirely focused on making each different group look similar in every way to their rank on the fascist scale of human intellect.  German film presented all of their countries citizens looking like blond haired, blue-eyed clothes of one another and the concentration camp administrators attempted the same type of system on the inmates by forcing them to look all the same as well.  Therefore, by looking like everyone else, you lose your humanity and have no say as an individual, regardless of whether you are a German or a victim.

During the tour we visited the sleeping quarters, a museum to the victims, as well as the gas chamber and the crematoriums.  More than fifty percent of the camp inmates would die upon entering Mauthausen but the camp was not meant to be a death camp.  The difference between this camp and the death camps in the east was that these camps focused more on working victims to death rather than killing them outright.  Still, prisoners were sent to the gas chambers or summarily executed for minor indiscretions.  When we visited the crematorium I was surprised to see it filled with wreaths and memorials.  I had been expecting the room to be entirely barren in order to add weight and comprehension towards what went on in this room.  The room had become a shrine of sorts for those people who became victims of the Holocaust and their families, countries, religious groups, and even armies, honored them for suffering they had to bare between the time the camp opened and when it was liberated in 1945.  There were some visitors who acted very immaturely around these symbols of contemptible human degradation but while I was disgusted as much as anyone else I won’t linger over it since I made this issue a point in my first blog about how people acted around the memorial against fascism in Vienna. 

Following the crematorium we entered the actual gas chambers.  They were smaller than I expected but I assume this was because Mauthausen wasn’t fitted as a death camp.  It was interesting to see several parts of the room were missing since the Nazis made sure to remove any revealing material that the Americans could use later on to prosecute the camp administration.  The exit to the gas chamber exposed yet another room used for execution and so the entire floor seemed built solely for the liquidation of the prisoners.  One of the more disturbing elements of the camp was the two separated hospitals set up in: one was meant for medical experiments on the prisoners while the other was created for prisoners who had grown too weak to work.  Those inmates who entered either one of the two hospitals had no chance of surviving and one may wonder how doctors comprehended their actions and if they were ever reminded of their Hippocratic Oath.  But under the circumstances, asking such a question would assume that the doctors some how had a stronger sense of justice than the rest of the camp personnel, which they assuredly did not.

After the tour was over, we saw a video about the survivors of the camp and saw footage shot by the Americans who had liberated the camp.  The strangest part of the video was how hardened the survivors had become in their interviews as compared to the American liberators.  The American veterans couldn’t help but tear up over what they saw there and yet these same soldiers had seen things some of the prisoners at Mauthausen may have never witnessed.  None of the experiences of combat could prepare the Americans for what they found in the concentration camps of central Europe, it was different kind of war than they could have imagined, and they did not know what to make of it when they first discovered it.  Many Europeans to a type of American naiveté and optimism that Europe has lost over the centuries and I can vaguely make the same assertion to the Americans who were interviewed for the documentary.  Even the Austrians who hadn’t suffered at the camps did not express any emotion over the questions they answered.  It seems they’ve come to terms with what happened while America still holds a less cynical understanding to the ways of the world and therefore feels a deeper emotion to many of these events.  Such an assertion may prove fallible but the general idea of our naïve American comprehension up to the present day holds at least some truth.

Following the video, we made our way back out into the park that held the myriad of international statues and looked over some of them more closely.  It was interesting how many of the statues did not assert pain or suffering but actually depicted soldiers of that said country overcoming their German captors and thus showing that in the end, their strength won over that of their enemy.  There was one statue that didn’t have any of this idealism though, it was a memorial to the children who died at the camp.  The statue was shaped in the form of a slide and a swing set and left one fairly shaken.  As we made our way through the park we finally reached the quarry where so many of the prisoners worked and died.  We made our way down the hundreds of steps; having now been remade for visitors, these steps were still quite strenuous to walk down.  As we made our way to the bottom, we read the signs stating how the prisoners would climb up only to have their German overseers’ push them back down, causing everyone behind them to fall as well.  When we finally reached the bottom there was literally nothing left from the quarry.  Grass and soil had grown over where the work once took place and now one would not recognize what evil went on here sixty years ago.  Making our way back up the stairs was quite an effort and as we went up, many of us thought of how impossible it would have been for us to carry stones on our back while making the arduous journey up the hill.

The entire trip to Mauthausen was quite an experience because it both validated many of the images and thoughts I had about the Holocaust but also gave me new ideas about who the victims were during the events of the Second World War.  Though many of those killed under the Nazis were ethnic groups, it has never really been noted how actual prisoners of war could be sent to these camps.  Most of the western soldiers sent to the camp were from Allied intelligence but those from the Soviet Union were regular soldiers because the Nazis had nothing but contempt for the Russians and their various satellite states.  The look of the camp was also quite different.  Though I saw the barracks and the gas chambers and everything else that is so ingrained into our psyches about the Holocaust it was still a surprise to notice the castle walls that hid everything that went on inside.  Its innocuous exterior belies its malevolent interior and with it all the history we have grown to understand from year after year of schooling.  What happened in the camp was most likely the same as any of the other working camps; its only major differences were the type of work forced on the inmates and the general occupation of a majority of the camp.  These were soldiers or civilians who were given none of the rights signed at the Geneva Protocol and they suffered under a regime that deemed them inferior, both as individuals and as races, regardless of the army uniform or passport they held before they were interned in the camp.  Mauthausen held within its confines many of the expectations one would have when they enter a concentration camp but when I actually got there and saw it for myself I was surprised by what had gone up after the war ended.  The monument park and the visitor center and everything else added purpose rather than exploitation and I was fascinated by all the countries that had citizens in the camp.  It showed that the whole world was suffering here while a global war was going on all around them.  Thoughts like that made Mauthhausen an important experience for me and I think it was necessary to at least visit one of these camps after studying them for so long.  It allowed me to connect all the things I had read with the reality and in the future will be able to add weight to whatever I study in the future.  Studying the Holocaust has always been a part of my studies since the history of the Second World War has always fascinated me and I must admit seeing the different battle sites and areas of historical importance has always been something I wanted to do in Europe.  I’ve already visited Normandy and Monte Cassino and though I wouldn’t place Mauthausen on such a list of sights I’ve seen to satiate my historical interests I would say it nonetheless had a great affect on how I’ll study this time period from now on.  The last note about the camps that was made clear to us upon finishing the tour was that such camps like Mauthausen still exist in the world and we should not forget that regimes throughout the world still attempt to subjugate different groups to suffer for their different ideas or outward appearance.  After viewing the camp and all its dehumanizing functions, that is one of the things that will stay with me the most.

When we finally got on the bus and left the camp, we came upon a small village hugging a river where we were to have dinner that night.  After spending the day in a place like Mauthausen this was probably the best place one could think of to spend the rest of the day.  I believe the town was called Wiedhoffen on der Illis and it had a wonderful storybook feel to it.  We met some of the professor’s friends there and a lot of us had fun getting to know the family and their children.  We spoke about life in America and the kids were interested in seeing what American money looks like.  What followed afterwards was them teasing us that our money looks too old to be any good.  Nonetheless, it was fun to see their fascination with us and we enjoyed discussing American television shows and movies that had made its way to Austria.  These discussions definitely helped humanize the Austrian people since there was so little chance to actually speak with real people living in the country.  It was also affirming after spending a whole day showing what one human being is capable of doing to another.  We thoroughly enjoyed simply talking about the things kids do in Austria and how similar they are to what we did when we were that age in America.

This dinner, set in a beautiful village with great company really helped after everything that had happened throughout the day.  It gave one a sense of common ground where one may speak a different language but that this should not preclude them from having the same interests as an American or anyone else.  I think this is even more important after seeing a camp like Mauthausen where peoples’ commonalities were ignored in order to produce a misguided and evil world view.  When eating with these normal Austrians you could talk about your favorite sports or your favorite characters from Star Wars and thus extinguish any belief that somehow you couldn’t enjoy the same things simply because you live on different continents.  It was a great experience to have and I will enjoy looking back on meeting this family and the fun my group had getting to know them.  When you can find common interests language is less of an issue than it was before and it humanizes people in a way only language seems capable of doing when you’re in a foreign land.  It was nice to make friends this way and I hope to have more wonderful experiences like this in the future whenever I get a chance to go out of the city and visit the real people that actually live in these countries.                                                        

There has been a lot in Vienna describing the country’s history in the Second World War but at the same time these monuments are not openly advertised and so are quite hard to find if you don’t have a guide book or knowledge from word of mouth.  So far in Vienna I’ve seen the Monument against Fascism, the German flakturmes, the monument at Schwedenplatz where Vienna’s Gestapo headquarters used to stand, and the Jewish monument at Judenplatz.  These monuments all create a sense of victim hood, which in some cases is a reasonable assumption while at other times it seems to be directing blame completely on the Germans.  These monuments feel focused on condemning the past without actually looking into what that past means.  They blame the past for the past without reasonably identifying what happened in their country as a whole.  This might all sound like the opinions of a naïve American but there doesn’t seem to be a concrete stance on the issue the way there is in Germany.  To a lesser degree, Austria is kind of like France, where it focuses on the victimization and tries to ignore the collaborators, whether they be Austrian or in the case of France, part of the Vichy regime.  Probably the building with the most accurate depiction of life after 1938 would be the Heeresgeschichtliche military museum, most notably because of the plethora of objects from the time period on display.  The section on Nazi occupied Austria has some fascinating objects, including pamphlets, pocket books of fascist doctrine, and armbands from the different groups fighting in the streets of Vienna.  The museum doesn’t seem to acknowledge one side or the other regarding the question of Austria’s duplicity but simply shows what was going on in an unbiased manner, which I greatly appreciated.  When you finally get to the war I was interested in a variety of the weapons, uniforms, and vehicles they had available but at the same time considered the exhibit much smaller than the WWII section at Les Invalides in Paris.  Nonetheless, the kubelswagons, Stork reconnaissance planes, and ME 262 engine pieces were all quite interesting to view.  I think the museum did a good job of showing all the environments that the German army went through during the war, showing uniforms for desert and tundra combat, as well as those for planes and submarines.

One of the more abstract parts of the exhibit were several cases featuring interpretative images of the Nazi period.  These modern art pieces featured disorienting forms of Nazi soldiers eating body parts and drinking blood as well as on of Hitler using a fork and knife to cut a brain apart.  The museum had a similar gallery on the second floor with artists depicting Napoleon’s reign over Austria in the early 19^th century but those paintings had a more neutral tone.  The pictures could be sad and melancholy but they didn’t resort to morbid perversity like the WWII section’s modern art.  I understand what these artists were attempting to achieve, they wished to show that the intellectualism and humanity of the world was nearly destroyed by the rise of fascism but these pieces are so ugly and disturbing that they reduce the symbolism to paltry exploitation and leave little real substance in its wake.  I have to say I’ve been fairly hard on a good deal of the memorials here in Vienna and these works are another disappointment but that being said, it was only a small part of the WWII exhibit and the rest successfully explained through historical research and presentation of objects what happened between 1938-1945 in Austria.  I am much more skeptical of monuments and works of art that tell me how to feel and blatant manner of the cannibalistic art at the Heeresgeschichtliche military museum left a bad taste in my mouth but when the museum isn’t trying to push forward its ideas I found it to be compelling.  Rather than show ugly images of wolves eating human bodies show actual pictures from the war to get your point across.  Show what really happened rather than interpret what happened.  The rest of the museum follows the former idea and completely excels at explaining WWII to visitors.  All the uniforms, weapons, and vehicles I explained above give people a sense of the totality that was going on back then.  It shows that the war wasn’t confined but expanding to nearly every continent.  Overall, the museum gives visitors a look at how a turbulent belligerency of ideologies throughout Austria and Germany transformed internal politics into a global cataclysm that saw all the major powers get dragged into the bloodiest conflict in human history.  For this reason, I feel the museum succeeds because it doesn’t present solely one emotion or one event on the historical timeframe but combines all of it into one whole exhibit.  While the monuments around Vienna discuss the persecution of Jews or political prisoners, or war itself, the museum identifies these problems and all the other issues surrounding the time period and thus adds weight to why these persecutions happened and thus makes these events more accessible to people.  The museum tells the story of how all this happened, from the rivalries and antagonisms between the Social Democrats and the Christian Socialists, or better yet the battles between the conservative Heimwehr and liberal schutzhund militias. 

The museum then goes into depth on the Nazi takeover of the country and its entrance into the Second World War.  I was surprised that the museum did not do a greater job at conveying the horrors of the Eastern Front.  Besides showing the different Wehrmacht and Soviet infantry uniforms, there was really nothing else that portrayed this part of the war as being anything more brutal than the other fronts even though the Western Front cannot compare with the horrors both sides faced in Russia.  The other area that I found somewhat aggravating was the tank yard.  I was very excited to see what tanks they had outside but was surprised to find really only American and Soviet tanks.  I had really wanted to see some of the German tanks, like the Panther or the Tiger, but none of these tanks could be found.  I understand that hundreds of them were destroyed after the war in order to inject life into the infrastructure of the ruined Axis nations, but this was a national military museum and I know some of these tanks are still around so it was a little surprising to not see a single one there.  Still, I got to see a T-34, the most important tank of the war and workhorse of Russia’s push into Germany, so that was pretty cool.  I guess you can’t always expect to see everything you want, especially when it’s dealing with a time period that many would like to forget.

Overall, the Heeresgeschichtliche military museum succeeds in presenting its history in a logical manner that does not let passions turn its exhibits into exploitation or overdone sentimentality.  Besides the disturbing modern art, I believe the museum puts history before emotions, even when everything we know about this time period seems to force emotion above impartiality.  I’m sure others would disagree on my opinions about objectivity but I feel being unbiased allows countries like Austria to finally come to terms with their past.  If emotion is put at the forefront, consensus would be impossible and so that debate over guilt and victimization would go on without scholarly agreement.  One doesn’t have to be completely emotionless about events like the Holocaust, in fact, emotion can sometimes do more to allow someone to enter a world like that then cold scholarship.  What I dislike is when such emotions take on a greater part of one’s historical outlook until there really is no interest in what facts and figures have to say about our past.  I’m sure this debate can get combative, especially when these debates have to do with events so close to our recent history but if one can’t be objective while still having the heart to actually feel something then they haven’t fully invested themselves into historical professionalism.   When you visit sites like Mauthausen you have every right to feel something, in fact, you should feel something.  What I’m getting at is the ability to recognize, understand, and study just as much as feel, relate, and come to terms with an event in history.  History continues to play an important in world politics and Austria is no exception.  The museums devoted to describing the past have all been amazingly good and I feel there is a general interest among these museums to explain history in a concise and unbiased manner.  I feel that the monuments around Vienna may somewhat be hampered by their inability to express a whole part of history at one time.  I feel they are similar to the way Ruth Kluger feels concentration camps tell people how to feel.  Everyone has a right to honor the past but I think one can only truly do so through expanding the narrative of time so that it encompasses what happened before and what happened after in order to set these emotional events into the context of reality.  That is why I enjoyed the Austrian military museum so much and why I hope more memorials to the past attempt to show what happened in Europe with an objective understanding.                                 

The German word of the day is Offen, or in Englisg, Frank.

I saw the new Quentin Tarantino movie Inglourious Basterds (that’s the correct spelling of the title actually) the other day and I think it was not only a good movie but another one of those cultural experiences that just appear out of no where because you happen to be in foreign country.  The film is about a group of Jewish- American soldiers who go behind enemy lines in occupied France to create all sorts of destruction.  Their story soon intersects with that of a young Jewish-French girl looking to avenge the death of her entire family at the hands of the Nazis, specifically an officer by the name of Hans Landa (Christopher Waltz, who won the best actor prize at Cannes for his performance and is also the first actor of the year to have Oscar buzz surrounding him).  Now, there are two reasons why I feel this movie could make an important blog: the first is the cultural issues that the film presents, both on screen and off, and the second involves the historical issues this film both presents and some, if not many, would say misrepresents.

Simply seeing a WWII movie in a German speaking country is an interesting cultural event but what made this experience so much more foreign and memorable to me was the issue of subtitles in the film.  Tarantino’s film does not follow other WWII tales where all the Germans speak English for some strange reason but actually has all the characters speak the language of the nation they represent.  The film is basically 1/3 English, 1/3 German, and 1/3 French and what made this so interesting for me was the fact that the subtitles used in the film aren’t made to help the English tourists visiting Vienna.  Though we saw the original English version the subtitles were obviously in German and what was even more aggravating were the scenes in German that had no subtitles at all.  I had to sit their while my friend translated as best he could the different verbal exchanges on screen and when it came to French I had to do my best with the lower division French courses I took at Davis as well as my three years of French in high school.  Nonetheless, I was still pleading in my mind for the French characters to slow down so I could cogitate in my mind what was actually going on.  To some, this probably would have ruined the movie but I must admit I probably have never used so much brain power watching a film, and this was a Tarantino film no less.  Just being in a movie theatre where dialogue is constantly changing from language to language and having only your wits about you to understand the storyline is a fascinating activity and one I might not jump to again but nonetheless partly enjoyed for its cultural value.  There were some other interesting nuances, such as the American jokes that only we would laugh at, or in other cases, the rest of the German speaking audience would laugh only after the subtitles came up on screen.  For all I know, there were probably some jokes in German that completely went over my head.

Now, the historical issues in the film are another area of cultural discussion because Inglourious Basterds only uses the events of WWII as a set piece to explain its story.  There’s a point where one can’t continue to say the film is following a WWII storyline but actually breaking out of the mold, heading into new territory, and shocking, offending, and surprising many in the audience.  What I sense Quentin Tarantino was looking for in making this film was a renewal of the 1960’s men on a mission film.  These films, such as The Deadly Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, The Guns of Navarone, and many others, all deal with a group of widely different American soldiers or spies being put together to go behind enemy lines in German uniforms and basically cause all sorts of havoc.  These films were able to connect the standard action picture with the war film and in some cases even base its material off real events.  But in the past few years a slew of truly serious WWII films were created and nearly all of them depicted the war as something without humor or action but with sadness and horror.  By returning to this old style of film, Tarantino is trying to bring back the fun of those old “men on a mission” films while also thumbing his nose at those films that have grown so serious that it seems impossible to portray the war any other way.  The fact is, WWII was an event like no other, and consequently, set itself up to be viable both as a jingoistic story of heroism or as a tale of suffering.  The acts the Nazis committed throughout Europe set them up to be both the greatest enemies Hollywood could ever want and the greatest antagonists of an drama period piece.  But the question of exploiting these events for the purpose of entertainment has taken its toll, both here in the United States and in Europe.

The EU made regulations recently that ban the depiction of the swastika and other Nazi iconography in all entertainment products that serve no historical or artistic purpose.  This law has caused such entertainment systems as video games to change the flags and logos of the Germans to less disagreeable symbols, such as the iron cross, even if the depiction of such an image on a flag is historically inaccurate.  The games are mostly all American products but our companies want to do well in oversea markets and so even Americans have to deal with the effects of the EU ban.  Movies are a blurry area for such a law and Tarantino’s film walks a fine line of historical accuracy and exploitative violence.  When you catch a commercial for the film here in Austria, you can see the Nazi flag throughout all the scenes but the one swastika that is stamped onto the title of American posters is missing entirely.  The symbol can’t be used for public commercialism but cannot be barred from the film itself.  Because video games don’t share the same artistic respect as film does in Europe, they can’t leisurely obscure such symbols on advertising and then fill such iconography into the game (most likely because governments want to keep such things away from minors).

Another historical concern is the representation of Nazis on film.  Last year there was some disagreement among critics about Kate Winslet’s performance as retired concentration camp guard Hannah Schmidt in The Reader.  Many saw the humanization of a Nazi as disrespectful but these critics seemed hell-bent on differentiating Nazis from humans and that I believe is ignorance as well since you can’t just say they were some alien force separate from the rest of the world.  Now, in Inglourious Basterds you have a much more nuanced interpretation of a Nazi officer that many critics have noted as the best depiction since Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List.  Christopher Waltz transforms his character into what I believe many people believed Nazi Germany was during the 1930’s and 40’s.  At times he can seem charming and intelligent (he speak four languages fluently in the film and loves to make jokes) but he can also perform acts of rage and perverse violence.  Thus, his character symbolizes the idea of a modern, sophisticated nation descending into total malevolence and conveying an ignorance towards mercy.  Unlike the stereotypical Nazi in Hollywood film, his smiles never hide some secret evil but are actually real smiles.  He seems totally unaware that what he does could be called abominable by others.  Thus, we know he’s evil but he doesn’t and that adds a nuance I think others tend to ignore or avoid in Hollywood.  The fact that the audience still knows he’s evil allows conservative critics to breath a sigh of relief that this isn’t another Hannah Schmidt performance where the audience is constantly questioning the morality of the character.

Now, you may be asking why should I be going on and on about these different performances.  Well, the fact is these performances describe the different perceptions we make of the past and how our representation of these historical eras will be presented in the future.  These performances can summarize how we as a society reflect on entire nations, whole ideologies, and large historical events and therefore should be studied on a sociological level for the importance they hold as an account of historical memory.  You could say I may be reading into this too much but in order validate my claims we will have to wait several years to see how depictions of the Second World War change in the future.  Whatever the case may be, these films, no matter how politically incorrect, have great implications regarding our process of determining history.  Thus, entertainment venues today can work just as well as a text book in telling the world what to think about our past.  It may not be authoritative and it probably is definitely inaccurate but what I believe film can convey most affectively is tone.  Tone can both make the world black and white as well as dilute it until it is gray.  This makes movies a powerful source of both sobering honesty and blatant propaganda.  Mattering on how film is used, one won’t determine the correct way of viewing history, but they may be seeing the direction the world is taking tonally in historical understanding.  Whether this is a good or bad thing cannot be easily determined since in my opinion, for every good movie there’s an equally bad movie.

History and culture was not something I expected upon entering the Burgkino theatre one week ago but I was pleasantly surprised to find myself constantly analyzing the audience as well as what I saw on screen.  This was in part an affect from the lack of English subtitles, which caused my brain to work extra hard to understand everything.  Overall, it was a good film and I’ve done my best here trying to evoke the historical nature of the film rather than simply giving a review of what I liked and disliked.  There were several things I had problems with but they don’t pertain to this argument and so I feel its best to disregard them here.  The irony about all this is that Inglourious Basterds doesn’t actually follow history at all after hour number two and goes off an alternative history tangent that either leaves you angry or jumping up and down in excitement.  I was in neither of these categories but I feel I’m an exception since I avidly study both history and film respectively and so could understand the criticisms both sides would have on the matter.  What the movie does do, as I’ve stated before, is promote a tone about the constantly changing retrospective power of the war.  On a basic level, the history channel level you could say, there is no debate and the world is split between bad guys and good guys.  This argument actually holds some weight based on the heinous acts committed during the war but I’d definitely say there’s a deeper level of study that can be found where the Manichaean focus of WWII is dropped and a more neutral view of history begins to appear.  I believe at some level film is beginning to fall into this more diluted zone of historical introspection, even if the lines between good and evil still exist on screen.  To make the film Tarantino has made, it would be impossible not to at least find some evidence in this conclusion.  The Nazis are still the bad guys and there is only minimal humanization of some of these antagonists, but overall, you’re given a more specific view of these characters than just Nazi #1 and Nazi #2.  It was enjoyable to see Inglourious Basterds and I want to see it again in America but I think there was definitely some valuable insights that occurred while watching the film that would have been hard, if not impossible, to completely comprehend had I seen it at the theatre in downtown Davis.                     

Because I had spent Saturday and Sunday in Vienna this weekend I decided that it would be great to take a day trip to Bratislava on Monday.  This trip began in the early morning and I must say there were many things that I did not know to expect upon entering Slovakia.  The first thing that I had no understanding of was Slovakia’s history in conjunction with the Habsburg Empire, therefore the history of this country wasn’t something I already knew a great deal about.  The second issue was the comparable traits between Bratislava and other post-communist Eastern Bloc cities, such as Budapest.  On both counts I was pleasantly surprised to learn a great deal of historical and cultural traits that can definitely be compared and contrasted with Vienna as well as Budapest.

When you get off the train and enter the Bratislava train station, you feel like your walking through a small mall somewhere in central California.  It has none of the international prestige of Westbanhof or Keleti Station in Hungary.  One of the main reasons for this lack of grandeur, both at the Slovakian train station and throughout the city itself, is because Bratislava was not a capital until Slovakia split with the Czech Republic more than a decade ago.  Much of the city has now been modernized because such efforts took place after the fall of communism.  I did not witness uch modernization attempts in Budapest and I hear not much has happened in Prague either because it never had to be rebuilt after the Second World War, therefore, Bratislava is surprisingly one of the most western looking eastern states.  This is not entirely true when it comes to the architecture and scale of its political buildings, such as its parliament and assorted embassies.  The embassies are spread out between the alleyways downtown Bratislava and could easily be confused with regular apartments if not for the foreign flags hanging outside the window.  The parliament was even more comical, for it looked more like a hotel or large office building, rather than a government institution.  Vienna’s parliament is designed in the style of neo-classicism, a direct reference to the foundations of democracy on the Peloponnesian coast.  Likewise, Hungary’s parliament is styled after the British parliament, which was considered the ultimate symbol of an advanced society since Britain was so admired during the 18^th century.  The Slovakian parliament is bland with office building windows and a little fountain at the front with little to no security besides a camera at the front door and a simple metal detector.  Vienna is similar in regards to its lack of security around its parliament but Hungary is surprisingly strict about its building, with armed guards patrolling the exterior and certain areas restricted from tourists.

We also visited the castle of Bratislava, which was built in 907 AD and soon came under the control of the Habsburgs under the reign of Maria Theresia, who modernized and expanded certain parts of the hillside castle.  There was a good deal of construction going on there when we visited it and I don’t think the actual structure is entirely original because of the war but I found the castle to be a slightly less compelling retreat than the Buda Castle, or for that matter, the Schonbrunn palace or the Belvedere.  I make these assumption based on certain illogical, though nonetheless substantial, observations such as the size and grandeur of a building.  It may reduce a beautiful castle to simply sounding provincial but I believe my comments have some validity since my concerns were the same as those during the Medieval Age.  Sometimes practical wasn’t the sole purpose of a castle and I believe the Buda Castle exemplifies this opinion since it is not only strategically well built looking over the Danube from Buda Hill but also opulent in its design and several times more grand than the Bratislava castle.  I think that the only other evidence that could bias these opinions would be the fact that we were unable to go inside the Bratislava castle.  Maybe if we did that I could better appreciate the castle’s beauty but since we were only allowed to walk around the castle’s bland exterior, it was less than exciting for us to see.

Some of the historical parts of Bratislava are interesting as well as comparable with Vienna and Budapest.  All three cities have a lavish monument to the Soviet Red Army and all three have some sort of connection to the Habsburg Empire.  I found it surprising that some people on the trip with us thought Bratislava was much more modern then they originally believed while others saw it as a post-Soviet backwater with little modernization.  I think it was more of a mixed bag with both ideas having at least some validity.  The transportation and streets around Bratislava are similar, if not equal, to Western European cities but their apartments look like they’re still from the eighties.  I found it funny that a few of them looked like the Segundo dorms at Davis.  In any case, Bratislava is definitely not as poor as I originally thought but its small size distracts one from defining it as a major European capital.  It felt more like a charming city that you happen to pass by pm your way to another one of the major European cities.  I’m sure Bratislava is larger than how I’m describing it but in regards to the city’s center and its main areas of commerce, it definitely feels like those cities that used to be famous but never renovated out of the medieval period and therefore loss prominence because of a lack in modernization.  I guess the example we used in class of this situation was Augsburg, Germany, which used to be one of the major trading cities in the Holy Roman Empire but never took down its medieval exterior and therefore was unable to expand or update their city.

One of the more fascinating parts of the trip was looking the prices on menus and in stores because Slovakia both accepts the euros as well as another currency used in Slovakia too.  Thus, there are two prices for everything in the country and it is interesting to view the price differentiation.  Why a small country like Slovakia was able to access the euro while other Eastern European nations have decided to keep their original currency is beyond me.  It is even remarkable to imagine how Slovakia was able to get the European Union to accept the use of the euro.  The prices for such necessities as public transportation were pretty much the same as Vienna but there was still a level of cheap goods available in the city that would definitely cost more in Austria.  For example, we were able to get a double scoop of gelato for eighty cents whereas such a dessert would cost about two euros at the ice cream parlor down the street here in Simmering.

Overall, I must admit that I was quite surprised by Bratislava and its culture.  I think American tourists have a misconception that Slovakia is a backward country that one would visit with some trepidation but it was much more western then these original reports suggest.  Yes, its housing was somewhat dilapidated and its city center was fairly laughable but the beauty of its winding street corners and small fountains definitely gave this quaint city a humanity I feel is lost on those who have never visited it.  Its street corners have comical statues doing odd jobs and street musicians that help build up a charm where cosmopolitanism and industry may corrupt larger cities.  It probably is only worth a day trip but to say you visited the charming little capital of Slovakia one weekend can be kind of fun.                                     

The German word of the day is dei der, or in English, at your place.

This weekend I visited Hungary and this trip was an especially important one for me because I have Hungarian ancestry as well as because I plan on studying for a semester abroad there this spring.  Budapest is an amazing city and like most other post-communist Eastern Bloc nations, it has its pros and cons.  There is an amazing history to explore in Budapest, from its castles and churches all the way to its 1956 memorials and beautiful parliament, which is based on the English parliament in London.  But at the same time the city is plagued by graffiti, a black market, and a poor transportation system.  Nonetheless, this city along the Danube holds many treasures, from its illustrious churches all the way to its quiet and tranquil island parks.  You visit the city and then have a strange realization that about one hundred years ago your family came from this place.  It’s a very strange feeling when you find the language incomprehensible to the point of gibberish but still know that a part of you comes from this country (of course, I can say the same thing about Germany, England and Ireland but it’s really only my Hungarian and Irish heritage that’s emphasized back home).  I was only in Budapest for three days but I’m glad to know that I’ll be going back in several months and get to see all the things I missed the first time I was there.

The trip started with a three hour train ride from Vienna’s Westbanhof to Budapest’s Keleti station.  Upon arriving we were treated to a crowded train station that felt a wee bit older than the state of the art stations you’re used to in Western Europe.  In fact, there were a lot of major differences in Budapest, a lot of which could be found on at subway stations.  First of all, guards monitor every station and require tickets before you can even reach the platform, a practice unheard of in Austria.  Another difference are the escalators, which go about twice as fast in Budapest than in Vienna.  You have to time yourself to jump on at the correct moment.  The subway cars that we took to get to our hostel were also of poor quality.  It looked as if they had not been refurbished since the end of the Cold War.  Outside of the poor conditions these subway cars faced under the Soviets, it should also be known that Hungary holds the world’s oldest subway car system, so that may be one reason why I felt a little out of place on it.  After getting off the trains and ascending the staircase to central Budapest, our reflections began to grow more and more positive.  People were playing instruments in the street, the shops all had a good deal of charm, and many of the churches and monuments required much picture taking.

We reached our hostel and settled down in an apartment that was built in the 1890’s.  I’m not sure if it was the age of the building or the fact that we were in an Eastern Bloc nation, but at one point we turned the knob on the door to our room and if fell right off.  So the living conditions could be called quaint but there were definitely some historical importance to the area because it was the Jewish quarter and consequently the Jewish Ghetto when the Germans invaded in 1944 when Hitler feared Admiral Horthy was going to attempt a separate peace with the Allies.  There are several memorials to the Holocaust around the area and the Jewish temple is one of, if not the, largest in Europe.  The synagogue was actually quite fascinating because its architectural design seemed to channel a Turkish style.  Now, if these places of worship are anywhere similar to the churches I visited in towns like Assisi in Italy, I wonder if the building became a synagogue after the retreat of the Turks.  I would presume the possibility that this building was once a mosque but I am only speculating.  One of the more darker conjectures I wondered about while on the trip was what was going on in our apartment complex during the war.  Again, the building was constructed in the 1890’s and the area had been the Jewish Ghetto so I can’t help but wonder what was going on between 1944-1945 (being that Horthy never sent the Jews to concentration camps until he was sacked in 1944 by Hitler and Nazi troops marched into Budapest).  Whatever the case may be, I found the district to be filled with historical items and monuments.

From our hotel we went exploring and came across the St. Stephens Cathedral of Budapest, which had an amazing dome and an interior design that expounded in opulence and beauty.  The church was actually conducting a wedding while tourists were gazing from the sides.  As the bride and groom left the church bells began to chime and the sound emanated throughout every part of the building.  It was definitely a sight to behold and I have to say I like it much more than Stephan’s Dome because of its size and non-Gothic architectural style.  While we were leaving we saw an interesting display on the steps of the cathedral where about five hundred heart shaped pillows had been put together to mimic one giant heart.

There were a lot of commemorative statues along the way that were interesting to view.  There was one statue outside of the American Embassy commemorating General Henry Hill Bandholtz, who led America’s occupation of Hungary after WWI.  He was greatly admired by the Hungarians because he stopped the Romanians (Allies during WWI) from destroying the Hungarian National Museum as well as sacking the royal palace.  Other interesting monuments included one to Imre Nagy, one of the main leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, who was finally arrested by the Soviets and executed.  There was one of the original 1956 flags with the communist symbol cut out of it on the grounds of parliament.  This was a form of nationalist pride, both in Hungary, and in other Eastern European nations because the communist symbol was always in the middle of the flag and by cutting it out, the original, unadulterated flag could finally be seen.  There was even flame coming out of a marble granite slab that was also used as memorial to the thousands who either died or were arrested during the Soviet’s brutal crackdown on the revolutionaries.  There were other statues along parliament, such as one for Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian revolt against the Habsburgs during the revolution of 1848.  An interesting part of Habsburg history in Hungarian museums is that the Austrians and the Hungarians usually disagree on many of the historical issues happening between their two peoples and it’s funny to read the choice of words describing events in the history of both countries.  In Vienna you might read about how Hungarian bandits raided the countryside and killed many innocents while in Budapest you’ll read about the Hungarian freedom fighters attempting to break the shackles of the oppressive Habsburg rulers.  One of the last moments that I was truly intrigued by was one of Budapest’s police stations, which still has seemingly hundreds of bullet holes and shrapnel wounds along its exterior.  I don’t know whether this was from the Soviet battle against the Nazis on the streets of Budapest or from the 1956 uprising but the silent testament these walls make I believe do much more than statues to tell the story of the past.  

We decided to spend the rest of the day on Margaret Island, a beautiful park in the middle of the Danube connected by a bridge.  The park has a series of gardens, statues, a small zoo, and even rentable pedal carts.  We walked along the island until dusk and then had dinner with the intention of visiting parliament the next day.  Sadly, the next day we were notified that all tickets had already been sold to view parliament so we had to find something else to do.  We decided to go to the Castle District, which holds the Buda Castle and nearly all the museums.  When you get to the top and view the whole of Budapest it’s almost like seeing Vienna from the Schonbrunn.  We visited the Budapest museum, which takes us through the history of the city from its inception during Roman times all the way to the 1920’s (I guess the people don’t want to learn about the rest of the city’s history).  Afterwards we walked around the medieval ruins of Buda hill and then made our descent back across the bridge over the Danube.  We walked around looking for Budapest’s botanical gardens and in the process of our search, were suddenly presented with the amazing sight of Hero’s Square.  This square has an amazing assortment of statues commemorating Hungary’s Kings, leaders, as well as heroes as the name would suggest.  There is even a statue of St. Stephen and most notably, one of Attila the Hun since Pannonia (later Hungary) was the farthest push he successfully made before his defeat in Eastern France years later.  The rest of the day was fairly relaxed because we decided we couldn’t find the botanical gardens and so made due with the Budapest zoo.  The zoo was really cool but I don’t think many of the exhibits would pass muster in America because of safety standards.  The bars surrounding the crocodile cage (which was actually below us since we were walking on planks above them) didn’t look like they would do the job.  At the same time though these poor safety standards also meant you got to see these animals up close whereas in America they’re kind of far off in the background where none of the visitors can see them.

So that was Budapest, a beautiful city with wonderful sights but at the same time a lower budget on transportation and graffiti cleanup.  I love many of the romantic streets at night and the walks on Margaret Island while also hoping that Budapest will one day be as cosmopolitan as Vienna is today.  I think Budapest is a great deal for many Americans since it’s all so cheap but one must also be sure to not splurge and ignore the amazing history surrounding the city.  I’m hopefully going back there this spring for a whole semester and I hope to enjoy all the things I missed on this first outing but having gone there and gotten an idea of life in a post-communist country that I also consider one of my many ethnic homes was something important for me.  I’m glad I was able to appreciate both the history of a country as well as the history of my family and I hope to gain an even greater appreciation once I visit again and learn more about the culture and life of the average Hungarian.  Needless to say, I had a wonderful trip.                  

Over the weekend I took a trip to the Alps which began in the town of Eisenstadt and ended with a great hike throughout the Alpine mountains of an area that I believe is called Reichenau.  Now, there wasn’t much historical significance to be found while hiking through the Alps but many of the excursions we took before and after the trip had some very interesting sites, ranging from the Baroque all the way up to WWII.  After getting on the bus we made our way to Eisenstadt, a town in the region known as the Burgenland, which was Hungarian territory until 1921, when it was transferred back into the domain of the new Austrian republic.  The city is very quaint and I don’t think was expecting a bus of Americans to drop by their front door.  After spending an hour getting lunch, we made our way to the Esterhazy estate, which had been turned into a museum.  What made the museum worth visiting was the musical composer, Haydn, and his connection to the Esterhazy family.  Back in the time of Haydn musical patronage was only beginning to grow in popularity.  Up to that time it had been mostly artists, sculptors, and even writers, who were commissioned by the nobility to create works of art.  The Esterhazy family was one of the most prestigious families in Hungary at this time and though there had been initial antagonisms with the Habsburg dynasty, they soon married into this circle of royalty. 

When you enter the museum, you see a series of portraits depicting different Esterhazy figures and Habsburg leaders (usually dressed in the red green regalia of the Hungarian army).  Though these paintings have some historical significance and later parts of the museum have interesting manuscripts with signatures from the likes of Haydn and Mozart, the museum itself is quite imposing, largely experimental, and for lack of a better term, boring.  First of all, the museum had arguably the ugliest interior design of any museum I had ever been in, with ugly disjointed colors and the continuous portrayal of three head on the wallpaper; the rooms reminded me more of a second rate casino in Reno than the historical remnants of an Esterhazy palace.  The museum took too much time promoting experimental art in a manner that alienated visitors more than inspire them.  Why the roof continued to explode was never explained, I assume it had something to do with a Haydn score, but nonetheless this form of historical introspection was irritating.  The gardens outside held another small vestige of interest for me because it showed the popularity of British culture on the wider whole of Europe during this time.  Unlike the manicured French gardens with their geometrical shapes, the British gardens focused much more on the natural, virgin beauty of nature and intended visitors to feel as if they were walking through nature, untouched by man, and beautiful for that exact reason.  The intensity of British culture was so great that Haydn himself even traveled to England later in his life to perform and write music.  So that was the Esterhazy museum, not the greatest find but the rest of the trip definitely made up for it.

After leaving the museum we made our way up to a fascinating church unlike any I had ever seen, which also held Haydn’s grave since he specifically wished to be buried in Eisenstadt.  He actually wanted an epic funeral with thousands of guests and all sorts of pomp and circumstances but because of Napoleon’s invasion, his funeral was sadly empty except for his closest relatives and family.  The church itself is so interesting because of its architectural design.  Unlike other churches, which value conformity and relative equality among the different points and walls of its exterior, this church has a type of fluidity to itself with no laws holding it down.  The roof is circular and moves up and down like waves.  The entire building is more like the Disney concert hall in Los Angeles than it is the Notre Dame in Paris.  Inside the church there is also a series of statues depicting stories from the Bible.  One of the more interesting aspects of these statues is the depiction of the Jews, who are seen ordering Jesus’s crucifixion, not in Biblical clothing, but in outfits common during the time these statues were made.  It is easy to simply point this out as a form of anti-Semitism because parishioners would view these images with anger and then see the Jews of the town walking along in the same type of clothing but let us remember that it was common for all people in Biblical stories to be depicted in the clothing of the time in which the stories are presented.  The statues are inherently anti-Semitic but I put into question the definitive nature of such intolerance since it was so common for all historical figures to be fitted in clothes common for the time.  Nonetheless, the trip was an exciting look at one history’s greatest musicians as well as an architectural wonder that I believe doesn’t get enough credit for its revolutionary look.

So now Eisenstadt was far behind us and we made our way to the Alps.  We got on a gondola, which took us to the top were our Alpine cabins were waiting for us and our bags.  During dinner one of the other students mentioned he was going to try and hike early in the morning and I decided that I too was interested in partaking in this endeavor.  We got up at around 4:20 in the morning and then made our way out of the lodge to go hiking.  It took us about four hours to reach the summit whereupon we laughed that the rest of class probably hadn’t even got up yet.  The fog of the early hours put a damper on our hopes of seeing the sunrise but our early expedition did allow us to see things I believe most regular travelers wouldn’t see sometime in the middle of the afternoon.  At around eight in the morning we actually saw a family of mountain goats walking along a hill above us and as we watched them they sized us up to see if we were friend or foe (at least that’s my interpretation of their long stares).  We hiked for a total of twelve hours and though I’ve faced much harder hikes in California through Boy Scouts, the mountain above Reichenau definitely has some beautiful scenery and wonderful little stops along the way where you can get food and recharge.  This is totally different from some hikes I’ve had in the US where rather stopping to get food and supplies three hours, you have to hike for three days to get to the next lodge with food.  So the next few days were difficult with all the sore muscles from hiking so long but it was all part of the experience.  The following day we made our way down the gondola and started our trip back home.

About halfway to Vienna we decided to stop at an amazing cave structure, which hold the largest underground lake in Europe, and though this itself makes it definitely a site to see, I was more fascinated with the historical episodes that had happened within the confines of this cave system.  It turns out during the Second World War, these caves were used as a secret production facility of the Nazi jet fighter program.  The German air force, or Luftwaffe, was at least ten years ahead technologically than any of the other Allied powers and it must have felt like something out of a science fiction film when American pilots saw these fighters descend out of the sky at speeds unimaginable at the time.  The caves actually didn’t build the most famous of the German jet fighters, the vaunted ME-262, but another prototype which luckily never went into service because of the Third Reich’s collapse.  Another more malevolent part of these caves was the use of concentration camp prisoners and POW’s in making the needed materials for the planes.  A small memorial can be found in the caves, recognizing the hardships these people faced under the Nazis.  The fact that the jets were built in caves can easily determined by the images of German and Austrian cities following the American and British bombing campaigns against the Axis.  The Germans found it easier to continue production of these so called Wonder Weapons and used other caves and concentration camp victims throughout the Third Reich to make these weapons.  Jews and other prisoners were forced make the V1 and V2 rockets as well in places such as Dora and Peenemunde.

Overall, the three days we took traveling throughout South Eastern Austria and the Alps was well worth our time.  We visited a lot of sites and saw some beautiful views from mountains we would have probably never climbed had we not been on the trip.  I think it was a great experience and hopefully the last few trips we have ahead will be just as memorable.   

The German word of the day is Autobahn, or in English, freeway

Vienna has had a long, tortuous past treating the Jewish population of their city.  The Jews who lived in Vienna during the fifteenth century were cordoned off in what we today call ghettos where they lived their lives in total seclusion from the rest of the Christian population.  Some were allowed to enter into the everyday world of larger Vienna, but these individuals were usually traders that the rest of the Viennese population believed were a valuable economic asset.  The Jews of Vienna lived through several pogroms even before the Anschluss in 1938.  These pogroms did not just involve harrassement and violence against the Jewish population but also ordered the complete expulsion of the Jews from Vienna.  These pogroms would continue on throughout Austrian history with leaders such as Emperor Leoold and Empress Maria Theresia continuing an anti-semetic mentality that would prove unhelpful in creating detente between the two groups.  It was only around the time of Emperor Joseph II and his reforms that the Jews of Vienna were given basic rights that allowed them to live like the rest of the population.  But as history tells us, animosity and distrust towards Jews would continue on for centuries and finally culminate with the Holocaust.  While Vienna today is widely respectful of its Jewish citizens, its past continues to haunt the Viennese as one of its greatest stains and much care has been made to honor those Jews who were subject to the demeaning treatment of certain Austrians.

Visiting the Jewish quarter of Vienna takes you to three different location: the Jewish museum, the synagogue, and the Judenplatz.  I was interested in visiting the Jewish museum to see what it was like to live in Vienna during the Nazi period but the museum sadly did not invest time in this part of the city’s history.  The only connection the museum had to this time period was the family heirlooms that survived the war that were given to the museum.  These included menorahs, cups, utensils, and a variety of Jewish items used in ceremonies.  What I found confusing about the museum is its all-inclusive nature to not just Jews but all other peoples who have been subjugated and oppressed at one time or another.  Thus, I have determined the Jewish museum is closer to the museum of tolerance since there really was nothing about the Jewish experience in Austria.  Every room showed the cultural malfeasance that even exists today in portraying certain ethnicities in poor or sterotypical fashion.  This is all well and good but these rooms don’t teach me about the history of Vienna, or at least, an important facet of the city that would be fascinating to learn about.  Therefore, the Jewish museum was surprisingly disappointing to me because of its lack of historical insight and focus on the problems with modern commercialism in the western world.  I left the museum with a ticket for a two o’clock tour of the Vienna synagogue and left with the hope that the rest of the tour would be much better.

The synagogue was actually quite intriguing, both on an architectual and historical level.  The synagogue from the outside looks like nothing more than an apartment complex and this was expressly decided upon by the city of Vienna so that no one would know that inside Jews were attending worship.  This decision was ironic, for several decades later the Nazis decided not to burn the synagogue because of its benign exterior and its proximity to Christian churches, which could become engulfed by the flames.  Thus, this synagogue was the only one saved from the Nazis during the occupation.  The interior of the church is lovely, with nearly all parts of the hall given some metaphorical or philosophical role.  It was also interesting to particpate and learn about the Jewish culture; upon entering the synagogue I was required to wear a yarmulke and learned that in the Orthodox tradition of Judaism, women are required to sit on the second floor while men sit on the first floor.  The women on the tour did not have to do this since we weren’t witnessing an actual service, but learning minor traditions and dictates like that is interesting.  Overall, the synagogue was a great way to learn about the history of the Jews in Vienna, granted I learned it orally from a tour guide rather than on my own by viewing artifacts the way I originally thought I was going to, but it was a great learning experience nonetheless.

The last part of the tour, the Judenplatz, was sadly another disappointment.  The outside is interesting to behold with its Holocaust memorial and names of the camps in which Jews were sent.  I had hoped the museum would have an emphasis on Jews living through the Holocaust since it is an area of history that I have frequently studied but sadly this was not the case.  The Judenplatz is more of an exhibition museum with only a small part of its grounds holding permanent exhibits on Jews living in Vienna.  The permanent exhibit they had was fascinating, showing you the remains of the city’s first synogogue but this was the only permanent part of the museum.  Being that the rest of the museum contained a portrait gallery of Broadway’s version of The Merchant of Venice I felt the building slightly misses the mark on presenting Jewish culture.  Others may find such small specialty exhibits interesting but again, I came here to learn about history, not Broadway.

Though I was disappointed with the majority of the museums Vienna offers about Jewish history, it does not mean that I haven’t been able to find monuments and museums describing Jewish life in Europe elsewhere.  Eisenstadt had a very interesting statue depicting Jews in Medieval wear, which was probably a propoganda tool to create mistrust between the different religious groupings of Christianity and Judaism.  Also, I recently visited Hungary and saw that they have a great deal more about Jewish culture because it was a refuge for Jews throughout much of the country’s history.  In the near future, we will also be visiting Mauthausen concentration camp, so there’s still more to see that discuss the history of Jews in Europe.  I think Vienna could have done a better job bringing to light its country’s Jewish history but for all the things I’ve seen, both in Vienna and elsewhere, I feel like I’ve at least gained a greater insight into the different forms of respect and derision Central Europe has bestowed upon its Jewish citizens.           

August 9, 2009

Today I went to the Heeresgeschichtliche military museum to and visited both the upper stories with their emphasis on the Turkish invasion and Thirty Years War as well the lower floors that described WWI and WWII.  Upon entering the museum, I saw the Hall of Strategists, a series of hallways with the statues of Austrian generals throughout history.  I only recognized one or two of these generals but the room was nonetheless an exciting to see.  The statues describe below their feet the different battles they participated or orchestrated.  Again, much of these descriptions were very vague for me, being that Austrian military history is only referenced at specific times throughout our course, but I have a great affinity for military history so I’m not complaining that much.  After leaving the first room, I ascended the stairs to the Turkish exhibit.  The floor describes the Muslim incursions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries against the west.  These invasions captured such regions as Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, and a series of our nations that fell to Ottoman power.  The Austrians were the last line of defense before the Turks entered Central Europe and therefore, the bulwark of Christian/Western cultural.  The Hungarians themselves attempted to defend their Magyar lands but at the battle of Mohacs in 1529, their king was killed and the majority of the nation became an Ottoman satellite.  This battle, and the death of the Hungarian king, would later spell the first step in creating the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The rooms show what European soldier wore and used as weaponry during the time period but it would appear that some of their technology would prove ineffective against the more power Turkish army.  The Turks had mastered the use of rifles and artillery, making castle walls useless against such siege equipment.  The Turks still used swords and spears that appeared more exotic than practical.  Nonetheless, their equipment still looked fearsome against the swords and shields of the European powers.  Many of the European mannequins held spears that looked specifically used for castle sieges.  Ottoman rifles would prove more powerful on the battlefield and it would be interesting to know if these incursions specifically changed the style of warfare in Europe because their weapons were growing increasingly useless against the Turks.  While gunpowder was becoming more popular in warfare, it should not be forgotten that there were still practical uses for older forms of combat.  One can recognize the time differences between loading a rifle and a bow and arrow was actually quite significant.  While the rifle could prove more powerful and psychologically detrimental in combat, the loading time on both weapons could make the technologically inferior bow and arrow the better fighting weapon.

While the Turkish incursions were proving to be a conflict of cultures, the Thirty Years War was in part a conflict of ideas.  Originally forming as a theological war between Catholics and Protestants, the war dragged on into four phases in which the conflict changed from religious conflict to political fighting.  This was the last major religious war in Europe and following the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, Europe entered a new stage of conflict where geopolitics took predominance and political ideology grew into a new form of conflict.  The military technology of these wars was quite similar to the wars against the Turks and I must admit I had trouble at times differentiating military units from the different campaigns.  The weaponry would arguably be the same since knights were used in France just as much as they were used in Hungary back in the day.  So I would assume the weaponry used in the Franco-Swedish phase was about the same as the technology used to fight the Ottoman aggressors in South-Eastern Europe.  The armor slowly changed from those of the knights to the less-cumbersome clothes of the rifleman.

All of these changes throughout history show the affects war had on the military and society in general.  It was fascinating to see all the different weapons, documents, and uniforms that have been worn throughout history and how exterior events, say like the Turkish invasions, actually changed nearly all European armies.  I did see the rest of the museum and that was all interesting to see as well but that is for another day.  These wars helped bring Europe to a new precipice in its history and the next floor of Austrian history shows the effects these had for Austria and Europe as a whole.