Bright and early on Monday morning we headed off to the Alps with a plan to stop in Eisenstadt on the way there. Eisenstadt was a charming small town with lots of little coffee shops, bakeries, and restaurants with outdoor seating. As we walked into the church in Eisenstadt for our scheduled tour, the church choir was rehearsing in the balcony of the main sanctuary. I don’t think I can adequately describe how beautiful it sounded in a space with absolutely gorgeous acoustics.
We were soon taken to the underground chapel in the church where we began our guided tour of the stations of the cross that thousands of pilgrims used to complete. I have to admit it was slightly creepy to be in such narrow stone hallways underground with lots of almost life-sized statues, but I learned a lot. Our guide told us that the way the church did research and figured out how many pilgrims would make their way through the stations centuries ago in Eisenstadt was by examining the records that priests kept of how many communion wafers they would order. I always find it particularly fascinating to learn how historians are able to discern specific pieces of information based on what documents and sources are still intact.
After the church, we visited the old Jewish cemetery and then the Jewish Museum in Eisenstadt. I found the tour interesting and I enjoyed seeing which pieces of Judaica and Jewish history the museum chose to display. I am still thinking about the photo of Jews a few years after the end of WWII celebrating Purim (the Jewish holiday that involves costumes which help to act out the story of the holiday). In this photo, one man was dressed up at Adolf Hitler and the rest of the men were dressed in the infamous uniforms of the concentration camps. The man dressed as Hitler is supposed to represent Haman, the villain of the Purim story who tried to have all of the Jews of Persia murdered. I was filled with pride and melancholy after I heard this explanation of the photo.
After our museum visit, we headed to the Alps!
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