I won in a Prize Competition!

Today I got a prize I won in a prize competition at the Historikertag. I had already forgotten that I took part in it. The question was about the statue in the haven in Konstanz: It's the Imperia, the prostitute which during the Council of Constance has been the mistress of both the king/imperator and the pope. There is a nice book about her in czech by Antonín Polách: Mezi cisarem a papezem. But I won the german version of the book Alexander the Great by Robin Lane Fox, which was the basis for Oliver Stone's Film. So I probably don't need to buy an other book during my stay in Prague, for I have to finish "Mezi cisarem a papezem" and if that's done I will start with "Alexander" and I'm only here until the end of february.

Borat

Yesterday I went to the cinema to see "Borat" and I laughed a lot, though I think it only seems funny in Europe. I was a bit disappointed with the end of the film, because the jokes would apparently evoke disgust, anger and so forth. I liked the scences, where Borat discusses some topics with "decent" people and thus made them say stupid things.
Interesting is that the kazakh village from the film is actual located in Romania, a country which is preparing to enter the EC. Although the film is funny and seems to be politically on the right side, the producers are to blame for betraying the people of the romanian village Glod (see for example the article in Wikipedia).

Back from Poland: (Different) Views on European History

I'm back from Poland (Auschwitz, Krakow, salt mine Wieliczka). It was a great trip, thanks to Eva and Michal (?), and trying to come back to the Czech Republik was a real, funny adventure.
It was interesting how other nations are looking at the same history: We are together in the EC, we are neighbours, but how we assess certain events etc., what we think crucial is rather different. I like to comment on some things that struck me.
On Friday, the 24th of November, we arrived at Auschwitz and had a guided tour through the two (part) camps Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau (more about Auschwitz). Our tour guide was very good and it was interesting to see Auschwitz through the eyes of a member of the victims of the Germans (in this case Polish). In Germany the answer to the question how much the german people could have known is often or (nearly) all the time that they haven't and couldn't have known anything. In Poland the answers is they could have and they should have. I think it's right that the Germans didn't know -- because they didn't wanted to. They could have known a lot more if they had started to think: There were articles in the german newspapers about the concentration camps in Germany. These surely didn't tell everything, though enough for one who knew the Nazis -- and every German knew the Nazis. The Germans knew what happend to the Nazis' opponents, they knew that it was the Nazis (or their forerunners) that started the terror in the Weimar Republic. Saying one couldn't have known is a lie. It's right that one couldn't have known everything, but one could have known enough (my grandfather for example read "Mein Kampf" before 1933 and said, that Hitler wants war).
What else struck me was that in the salt mine the guide said, that in Poland Pilsudski is a national hero whereas in other countries (not only in Germany) he is regarded as autocratic. I will and can not evaluate this, it's just something I noticed.
There was an other point that showed how different the same event appears to the different people: the new (german) pope. I learned that for (some) people it was -- and is -- a real problem that Josef Ratzinger has been a member of the Hitlerjugend. The discussion about this took in Germany not very long whereas it seems to be still prevailing for example in Poland (but I can't say this for sure because I have been there only for a very short time). May be it's because we think different about what it meant or why one has been in the Hitlerjugend. If one doesn't know that being in the Hitlerjugend was compulsory and not joining in could have lead to problems (like in Ratzingers case) one has to think that everyone who joined the Hitlerjugend was a staunch Nazi. I think we can compare the Hitlerjugend in this regard with the socialist youths in the former socialist countries. There may have been more people unsolicited in the Hitlerjugend than in the socialist youths but there were as well people who didn't want to but kind of had to go to the Hitlerjugend.
I don't want to show that Ratzinger is a good pope or that Germans can be pope, too; I'm not even interested in the pope as such (I don't understand why anyone thinks a pope is necessary or why anyone needs a pope); I only think one should be fair towards the person one is evaluating -- even if he/she is a/the pope.