Weekend Update
I’m Ally Marcus, and here are this week’s top stories:
Being a Jewish History scholar: On Monday, Helga Weissova-Hoskova, a Holocaust survivor, spoke to my Jewish History class. She was 12 when she was deported to Terezin, where she was imprisoned for 3 years before being deported to Auschwitz. During her time in Terezin, her father told her to “draw what you see,” and that she did - she produced over 100 crayon and watercolor drawings while she was there. Another part of the class includes weekly excursions to various sites in the city’s Jewish Quarter - last week we went to the Old-New Synagogue, and this week was Meisels Synagogue.
Being adopted: As part of the cultural program, we have the option to be set up with a Czech family, to practice the language, learn about our respective cultures, etc. I met with the mother from my Czech family, Pavla, at a small student pub near I.P. Pavlova, and she was lovely. She lives in the city, with her husband and her 6-year-old daughter Lucy, and she is pregnant and due in June with a baby boy! She works in veterinary science, and her husband is an economist. Her English and sense of humor ar excellent and I’m very excited to spend more time with her and her family! Over the rest of the semester, we can meet as often as we would like, or our schedules allow, and we already talked about what we could do together - ranging from going to concerts, having dinner at their flat, or even spending a weekend at their cottage. We spoke in English the entire time, oops.
Being a tour guide: This weekend, I have several friends from USC in town who are studying abroad in places across Europe. It’s a good test of how well I know the city - geographically as well as historically. And I’m doing pretty well, if I do say so myself!
