Day one

Today was a free day for students and staff to wander around the city and photograph. Prague revealed itself to be rather a hotbed of used camera shops, tempting many of our students to part with their Kroner. All kit brought was swiftly put into use, although unfortunately I cannot blog the results as they are as mostly are using good old film.

A few of us went to the old Jewish ghetto, which synagogues and the old cemetery now make up the Jewish Museum. 90 percent of Prague’s ancient Jewish community were killed in the Holocaust during the Second World War. The synagogues were only saved from destruction during the war because of the Nazi’s morbid wish to display the buildings and antiquities as an exotic exhibit of an extinct race. The Pinkas Synagoue has the names of all the Czech Jews that died in the war, including their age. There were over 300,000 names and some of the victims where only babies. The Pinkas Synagogue also displayed children’s drawings from Terezin, the holding camp for Czech Jews before they were sent to a death camp. Tomorrow the whole group are travelling to Terezin.

A larger group of us then explored the marvelous Prague Castle and it’s quaint Toy Museum. As we strolled back across Charles Bridge we encountered some of our group photographing… perhaps we can post some of the images on to this blog. As the light fell and cameras were tucked away we treated ourselves to an amazingly thick hot chocolate in the Old Town square.