January 26th

We went to the judenplatz to see a memorial to the holocaust. I think that the intentions were good, however the execution of the memorial was not well done. It’s a square concrete building that is supposed to look like books are covering it and there are the names of the camps that Jews were deported to engraved into the stone at the base. To me this was not a successful memorial because if you didn't know where to find it and if you didn't really know what it was it would be impossible to tell that it was a memorial to the holocaust and the Jews who lost their lives.

After that we walked over to the Sissi museum at the city palace. It was an interesting museum and I thought that the palace was beautiful and some of the rooms in this one were more homey than some of the other palaces that we have seen. I did think that it was interesting to learn from Dr. Moser that the relationship between Sissi  and her husband was not the happy idealized marriage that the museum made it out to be.

After  that we took a bus to the top of one of the mountains surrounding Vienna to see a view of the city. It was beautiful, you could see the city pretty well and the snow covered vineyards that were all over the small mountain were also very beautiful.

The last thing that we did was go inside St. Stephens Cathedral, on the outside of the building a symbol of rebellion had been carved into the stone during WWII but sadly defiance against the Nazis and rebellion was not widespread throughout Austria.