Storytime: Tactless in Lidice
In the summer of 2005, I had the unique opportunity to travel throughout Germany, Poland, and Czech Republic with a tour called the “Holocaust Remembrance Tour”. Given that I had just studied the Holocaust the previous semester, the tour was a marvelous way to experience history and tragedy in a more personal and firsthand way. The tours were very draining physically and mentally, the most heavy hitting being the memorial at Lidice. Given the serious nature of this particular location, and the trip as a whole, one might expect a high level of tact, much more so than normal. This, however, was not the case on this occasion.
As I recall, we had just taken some time walking around the memorial grounds in Lidice. After a brief walk from the memorial to the temporary visitors center, we found ourselves waiting outside for several minutes in the cool mist while the previous tour group cleared out. I don’t even remember what the next comment was regarding, but one member of our group was a bit frustrated with the circumstances and compared our tour leader (Iain, bless his heart!) to Hitler. Sigh.
Perhaps I was just extra emotional that day, but I’d say that such a comment was out of line at that time or any other time. It really bummed me out.