justin.hughes is a college professor who is planning an education trip abroad for his class to:

focus on the rhetoric of the WWII and the Cold War in Prague, Vienna, Budapest.

Where were these professors when I was in college? Or maybe I just went to the wrong college.

Anyway, to help plan the itinerary justin asks for suggestions on the Rick Steves’ Europe forum as to how long to visit each location and must-see sites. The resulting discussion is essentially a syllabus for a self-guided MOOC (For anyone who might not be familiar with the term, MOOC is short for Massive Open Online Course) for any traveler who might be interested.

Among the brilliant suggestions:

Memento Park (Statue Park) on the outskirts of Budapest is really great. … They have a side attraction there that has to do with instructional videos for trainees of the communist secret police. The whole thing seems at once chilling and oddly comical when we visited. But with recent events, it would feel more chilling now I expect. ~VS

Prague does have a pretty profound old Jewish quarter. Vienna is pretty profound in its lack of the same. ~James

If you’ll be in Prague, one WW-II historic sight that I’d definitely recommend is the Church of Saints Cyril & Methodious, which was a very significant site connected to Operation Anthropoid. There’s a small but well done Museum in the basement and crypts area where the “final battle” occurred. ~Ken

Hell, even if you don’t have the time, means or desire to take a trip to some of the locales suggested in this thread, just reading the thread and conducting a little follow-up online research can be terrifically educational. I for one had never heard of Operation Anthropoid prior to reading this thread, which as it so happens was the “only successful government-organized targeted killing of a top-ranking Nazi.”

This is just a small sampling of the itinerary suggestions. At the time of this writing the discussion contains more than 40 posts.

Read the thread in its entirety: Need ideas for student travel focused on WWII and the Cold War – “Rhetoric of War and Remembrance”