WEEK XIII

Czechs and Balances

This week’s readings brought me to the familiar territory of post-WWII Czechoslovakia and the gates of the Terezín concentration camp. This camp held 32,000 political prisoners during the war, including the civil engineer mother of Radek and Joseph Masin, whose oral histories are available through the National Czech and Slovak Museum’s digital collection.

By the early 1960s, a memorial museum was proposed for the “Small Fortress” Gestapo prison in Terezín, however, its opening was impeded by the communist government of Czechoslovakia. Communism is about shared ownership, but the government was unwilling to share the country’s history. Only after the Velvet Revolution and Divorce 30 years later was the museum able to be dedicated and expanded in the new Czech Republic. 

A major dispute between public historians is the role of activism in the historical process. While the communist rejection of a Terezín museum was by no means the sole cause for the overthrow of the communist government in Czechoslovakia, it is certainly an example of how history sways public opinion. For those imprisoned at Terezín, their stories remained locked up as long as Terezín was absent from Czech history. Suffocating decisions of the communist government such as this caused Czechs to seek an alternative to communism. Terezín was finally acknowledged under President Václav Havel, who famously promoted, “The Power of the Powerless.”

Not all public historians are called to jumpstart revolutions, but all public historians are expected to present the past in an honest manner that incites intersectional discussion. Rather than shy away from controversial topics, it is a public historian’s job to present all the facts and give the audience space to process and discuss. Everyone views history with different biases, and discussion can allow these different perspectives to create increased engagement and deeper understanding.

Another of the readings this week mentioned the Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation. Facing History is a paragon of what it means to acknowledge and admonish historical atrocities, while at the same time, bringing these themes into discussion of the present. I recently read their book A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism by Phyllis Goldstein. I was well acquainted with Jewish struggles from the Bible and Holocaust, but many of the stories in between, and especially those deemed “Antisemitism Today”, shocked me. As a Catholic raised in a post-Vatican II world, I had not been exposed to blame placed on Jews for the death of Jesus. Likewise, I had evaded any theories that seriously denied the Holocaust or blamed Jews for 9-11. 

This book helped me realize that antisemitism is a universal and transcendent theme. Antisemitism is not confined to the book of Exodus or a concentration camp, it is a real issue that requires discussion today. Publications like A Convenient Hatred do an exemplary job of presenting uncomfortable, and sometimes controversial, history as part of the past, but also as a relevant concern for the present and future. Antisemitism and hatred are alienated as attitudes of the past, without being denied in the present. Balanced history is created when public engagement and discussion checks its presentation.