September 10, 2024
Miles: 68.11, Total: 6,736
In just one day, summer turned to fall, and Slovakia turned into Hungary. Although we slept in Slovakia, we walked across a bridge to eat dinner in Esztergom, Hungary's former capital and home of its largest church.
On our ride along the Danube., we passed a few nondescript Holocaust memorials. "When you see Hebrew, you know something bad happened there," Howard observed as we rode past a small plaque noting where several Jews were shot into the river. Howard also spent a lot of time in Bratislava reading the panels where the synagogue used to be, before the communists turned it into the on-ramp for a truly horrid bridge.
And herein lies one of the most painful paradoxes of our species: Against backdrops of grand castles, breathtaking cathedrals, charming towns, safe roads, and tamed waterways, people have slaughtered each other, over and over again, through wars, revolutions, pogroms, enslavements, inquisitions, and genocides.
I studied psychology because I wanted to understand why people destroy each other, with the hope that I might help prevent more destruction. As I wend my way across Europe, through areas where my ancestors may have murdered my husband's ancestors, I feel so bewildered. I know the theories, and even published some research of my own. But I still cannot fathom why people inflict such horrors on each other, especially in places of such order and beauty.
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