Significant Moments in the History of Montserrat

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So we went to Barcelona. We did. That's gonna come up a little bit here for a minute. We have a few episodes lined up that are inspired by that trip. One of my very favorite days from that trip is when we went to Montserrat. That name literally means serrated mountain because if you look at it, it is jagged. There are some cool pieces of lore about how like angels cut it that way, none of which we're getting into today, but I was just blown away by how absolutely beautiful it is. Both the natural elements of it, like when you're up there and you're looking out at the vista, you feel like you're on top of the world, but also the man made structures there are quite beautiful. And because it's about an hour's bus ride from where we were staying in Barcelona proper, we got a lot of history information en route from our guide, who was the wonderful Isabelle, who I absolutely adored. But there is a little bit of a language difference, and that meant that there were a few times where she said something that made me go what we Yeah, we had very similar experiences and that I was like, what are you? What are you talking about? And then it made me start to think about what kind of information I would like if I could curate the story of Monserrat for a group of visitors, right, I would want stories that ranged from the earliest days of the monastery that's there to more modern times. There's even prehistory before the monastery. We can talk a little bit about that behind the scenes. But Manserrat is a really culturally important place with a lot of stories. So I was like, how how would I want to lay this out as like a terronism guide. So that's kind of what you're getting today. We're mostly focusing on three primary elements of its history, which kind of show the importance of the place as a religious center, which also includes some art history, as a military center, and finally as a place that has been home to political protest. So the earliest historical information on the site where the monastery at Manserrat would eventually be built is of course sparse, and it all starts at least in terms of the inspiration for the monastery with a kind of mythic story about a sculpture being found, and according to that legend, in the year eight eighty, several shepherds who were children saw a light and heard music coming out of a cave on the mountain one night. So when they went to this cave, they found a sculpture of the Virgin Mary. This sculpture was surrounded by angels who were playing music. So the children went and reported this to local adults, and as a result, the bishop came to see the sculpture for himself. He was so taken with it that he wanted to move it to an existing cathedral. But the story goes that as the madonna was being carried down the mountain, she got heavier and heavier, and they interpreted this as a sign that the statue wanted to stay there on Manserrat, and so that was where a monastery or any other religious buildings would have to be built. Where this sculpture came from is unknown. The lore puts its origin at the time of Jesus, and that it was a request of Jesus to Saint Luke to have an image of his mother Mary carved from wood. In some tellings of this story. The carpentry tools which had belonged to Jesus were used by Luke to create this wooden portrait of Mary, and according to legend, this piece of artwork arrived in Barcelona via Saint Paul, who gave it as a gift to the Christians living in the area. So that of course leads to the question how did this statue get to a cave on Maserat? But one popular theory is that when the Moors attacked Barcelona in seven eighteen, the sculpture was hidden in the cave for safety and then stayed there for the next one hundred and sixty years because over time the secret hiding place was forgotten. Basically, everyone who knew where it was eventually died. And within a decade of this find, which believers consider to have been a miracle, there was a chapel built outside of the Santa Kova, which is the name for the cave that the statue was found in that translates to Holy Cave. That chapel location can still be seen, but you have to hike a little way away from the monastery to see it. By the end of the ninth century, there were several more chapels. In ten twenty five, abbott Oliva of Ripley officially founded the Monsarrat Monastery, and for several hundred years the monastery at Monsarrat was under the control of this monastery at Ripley. It didn't become completely independent from that organization until fourteen thirty one, under an act of Pope Eugene the Fourth. There is this really significant moment that happens in the late eleven hundreds, the statue was replaced with a new one. But even this is something that's a little confusing because it's not often mentioned in various accounts of the statue at the monastery, although the abbey's official website does mention it in their historic timeline, noting that this twelfth century statue is one of the jewels of the collection, and even today when you read short write ups, this statue is still talked about as though it's possibly something that was made by Saint Luke. The statue, which is currently on display, is very much in line with the art style of the twelfth century. The seated figure of the madonna is elongated, like her features are elongated. Although it is not an especially large piece, it's thirty eight inches tall, so about a meter tall. The infant Jesus is in her lap, and she holds an orb in one hand. That orb is actually a thing you can touch. The way she's displayed, there's like a glass case protecting her, but that one hand holding the orb protrudes from it and people touch it as part of their prayers. That switcheroo aside, maybe the most fascinating aspect of this depiction of Mary is that she's dark skinned, so she's grouped under the umbrella of depictions known as black Madonna's like that name suggests, these are images of the Madonna that have brown or otherwise very dark skin. The Mansarat sculpture is called La morinetta, which translates from Catalan literally to meaning brunette or brown. So there's a lot of religious and art history writing about black madonnas because there are a lot of them, and there are lots of varying theories about why they exist and what, if anything, that coloration means. To be clear, this is referring to madonnas that are found primarily in like predominantly white European countries, not madonnas that are made in regions where a darker skin tone is like more common among the general public, so it does raise some questions. One theory is that these images were made with darker skin tones in an effort to kind of marry pagan and Christian imagery. That is just one possible explanation. We'll talk about others in just a moment. I will say that, like a lot of these depictions, their skin is a lot darker than like the rest of the sculpture. Yeah, yeah, well so darker than the rest of the sculpture, and like darker than like the olive toned skin that like a lot of scholars believe that like the historical Jesus probably had right right, they are like dark, dark brown, and sometimes literally like the color of coal. Right. There is also a commonality among the various black madonnas in that most of them, by which we mean the sculptures or paintings, are associated with miracles, which has led to a common belief that a black madonna is especially sacred. This is also linked by some to the verse in the Song of Solomon in the Bible, which reads, I am black but comely, or in some editions, I am black but beautiful. That verse, which of course includes a lot more. Text is often examined as a study of race within Christianity, but as it pertains to Madonna's there are theories that some of them may have been painted with dark skin to invoke that verse, and there is even a possibility that a trend may have started after some representations of Mary were made with this darkened skin tone or became darkened, and that then others followed suit. In the case of the Madonna of Monserrat, it appears that she wasn't actually created with dark skin, but that her skin on this sculpture darkened over time, and she's not the old only black Madonna that appears to have gone through this sort of shift. There are a few different possible reasons for this. One cause is that some of them have just been discolored by their surroundings, particularly things like candles, which can deposit a fine soot residue onto surfaces. Another, which was mentioned as early as eighteen seventy eight by French architect Charles Ruhal de Fleury, is that works might have had silver plating, and that silver plating blackened over time, and then he suggested that that look was copied by subsequent artists In the early twentieth century, Stephen Bissel, a Jesuit scholar, noted that a lot of skin tone paint included vermilion or red lead, and both of those can blacken over time. In a paper for the American Historical Review in two thousand and two, anthropologist Monique Scher, who includes all of these explanations and authors, notes quote Although the novelty of a black madonna seems to be a source of pride for local pilgrimage centers, today among most scholars the phenomenon has been deemed rather uninteresting, as it is customarily considered to be nothing but darkening by candles and age, and thus not warranting greater investigation or elaboration. I will confess when we got kind of the weird she's black, but they think it's from candles, I was like, what that doesn't make sense. But reading all of the art history discussions of what may have gone on, I'm like, ah, now I understand. I had a very similar response to like a different part of that same explanation that she gave to us, which is like she was like she might have been white and she might have turned black, And I was like, what are what do you say right. The Madonna of Montserrat, which is a wooden sculpture as we said, was examined by conservators in the early two thousands to determine what the true nature of her pigment was, and using X rays and other tests methods, researchers concluded that she had originally been depicted with light color skin, but that either candle smoke or a varnish reaction on the skin tone areas of her sculpture caused this thing to turn black. She was then, though repainted black during restoration efforts over the years by conservators who may have believed the original color was black. The most recent black repaint that they were able to conclusively identify was done in the early eighteenth century. By the twelve twenties, pilgrims started to make their way to the monastery to visit the Virgin of Monserrat. By the mid twelve twenties, the monastery had a boy's choir, which it still has, and official recognition of the Brotherhood of the Mother of God of Monserrat. Also in the early thirteenth century, Alfonso, the tenth King of Castile Leon Englecia, who was known as Alfonso the Wise published a book of songs, Canticles of Holy Mary. These are not all songs he wrote, although he may have written some of them. It's believed that musicians of his court created most of the songs, and the songs tell the story of the monserrat Virgin Mary. They attribute multiple miracles to her. In one, a man who put a ring on the statue's finger is then visited by the madonna in his sleep. After he gets married, she tells him that he cannot marry because he had already pledged himself to her. According to the song, that man left his wife to become a monk. Other stories told through the canticles include the madonna bringing a woman's beloved son back from the dead, and there's even one in which a man is struck dead after painting the madonna white. That's a particularly interesting one because it indicates the statue had already blackened by the thirteenth century. This collection of songs helped spread the story of the statue and its finding, which was considered a miracle, as well as other miracles attributed to it, and it drew more people to the site. The monastery continued to grow throughout the following decades, and it had a steady stream of pilgrims who visited to see the Madonna. In the fourteen nineties, the monastery got a printing press. It was one of the first in Spain, and that makes Monsarrat now home to one of the oldest publishing houses in the world. It is still going more than five hundred years later, although there have been interruptions due to various conflicts. This area has had a lot of conflict. Yes, we're going to talk about some more of them in a subsequent episode Bonus Story. Also in the fourteen nineties, the monastery at Monsarrat was invoked in the naming of an island. Just in case at the beginning of the episode you weren't clear on whether we were talking about the mountain or the island, the two do have a common tie between them. The island was named Santa Maria de Monserrat in honor of the Virgin Mary. At Monsarrat, there was a monk from Monsarrat with Columbus on his second Transatlantic voyage in fourteen ninety three. His name was Bernardo Buil. While the Caribbean island was inhabited around three thousand BCE, possibly by a pre Arwak people, and then by the carib people. After that. When Columbus got there, no one was living there, so it was colonized almost one hundred and forty years later and used for plantations. This island passed between Britain and France until the Treaty of Paris and seventeen eighty three once again made it British territory, and it's remained British territory ever since. The island of Monsarrat has its own lengthy and complicated history of slavery and government unrests and even volcanic activity, way beyond the scope of this episode, which is about a different place. Yeah, yeah, I just thought we would pop that in in case you're like, wait, but why does the island have the same name. Coming up, we're going to talk about Napoleon's role in the hisay of Monsarrat, but first we will pause for a sponsor break. One of the most significant events for Monsarrat was the destruction of the entire facility in the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon invaded Spain in eighteen oh eight, and if you look at Monsarrat on a map, it sits to the northwest of Barcelona, so it was right in between the French border and the city of Barcelona, which as a religious center made it vulnerable to an advancing army, and as a military location, made it important as a strategic location for both the Spanish and French armies. So because of this, the Spanish army moved into the monastery and the monks left. Most of them went to the island of Majorca, taking a lot of the monastery's valuables as well as art, in the hopes of keeping those things safe. Although Spanish forces held the mountain and use it is a central location to send arms and information to the surrounding military units, Napoleon's troops boldly moved to try to take it for themselves. There's an interesting piece of lore attached to the first battle at Monserrat between France and Spain. The French military was powerful. It managed to set the monastery on fire, but then they heard what sounded like a massive Spanish army marching on them, and they retreated. Those huge troop numbers were an illusion, though The noise was attributed to the drum of a single boy whose drum beats echoed so loudly off the mountains that it created the sound of just a huge throng of marching troops. Sometimes this story is told as though the drumming was part of an organized effort on the part of the Spanish forces, and other times it sounds more like just a lucky accident. The name Isidra Juke Casanovas is often given as that of the drummer, and there's a mania meant to him in Elbrook, which that's just to the east of Monsarrat. That's where he is said to have been drumming. And the early fighting at Monsarrat in eighteen oh eight, the French lost more than four hundred men. Yeah, it's very interesting how differently that story gets told. In one, it's like the people of Elbruk are trying to take up arms and help in the effort, and they tell him he can't help in any way, and so he gets his drum and it's very heartwarming and inspiring story. And in others it's like, no, they literally plan this out. Oh so, so just if you read it, it may come out different depending on your source. But the Napoleonic Wars, of course continued for years beyond that early victory for Spain and overall, Napoleon was quite successful in his campaign to capture Spain. In Catalonia, Montserrat was one of the holdouts, and then in eighteen eleven, General Louis Gabriel Cuchet took ten thousand French troops and positioned them all around the monastery for a coordinated attack from all sides. This operation on the part of the French took the Spanish forces at Monsarrat by surprise, and France killed hundreds of Spanish soldiers and at that point the monastery was burned down. The site remained empty for years, during which time Spain enacted land acts which divested the monks of the property on Monsarrat, But in eighteen forty four monks returned and in the decades that followed the monastery was rebuilt. In eighteen eighty one, the Virgin of Monsarrat was declared a patron saint of Catalognia. Yeah, she is not the only one, but she is one of them. In nineteen eleven, Monsarrat opened its museum, then the Biblical Museum of Monsarrat. During the tumultuous times, the monastery had experienced Before this, it had lost almost all of its heritage objects. So a Benedictine monk and scholar from the abbey, father Bonaventuro Ubach, had traveled to various sites in Northern Africa and the Middle East to create a new collection for this museum. More than sixty years later, in nineteen sixty three, the museum expanded and evolved to become Musea de Montsarat. This new museum included archaeological items that the monastery had acquired, and it also transitioned a lot of the art that had been displayed or stored in the monastery into the museum setting. This included a lot of Baroque and Renaissance art that had been collected over the decades. And then the museum received a large donation from the collection of Catalan art collector Joseph Salardies when he died. Salardis had lived to be one hundred and five and throughout his life he had acquired art, so his collection was very impressive. Some of the most impressive pieces in the collection of the Museum of Montserrat today are from this bequeathment, including works by Picasso, Fortuny and Johnsinger Sergeant. The collection has continued to grow as other estates have bequeathed collections, and it operates through donations. This year we're recording twenty twenty three, the museum added a really interesting exhibit which shows off the excavated walls of the oldest buildings of Monsarrat. They are reconstructed on an upper gallery floor, so you can walk through the space in the same configuration that it was originally built in. This exhibit is starkly lit. It's incredibly striking. Did you go there? I did? I did not? I did, And it's it's a little bit strange just in terms of like the feeling it evokes when you walk in, because you're up there looking through their art galleries, which again they have what I can only describe as a banging art collection, Like they have some jewels in there that I never realized were there at Monsarrat. And you kind of seen this door open and you see like stone walls, and not knowing what it was, I was like, what on earth is in there? And I went in and started walking around, and a couple of other people from our tour group had gone in also, and a couple of people were like, it's a little bit spooky up here because it is there's nothing else in there except these walls, and like the lighting is very very dramatic. And then as you're reading that this is what they had excavated during one of their building periods, it's really interesting and it's just by itself. There's no other stuff, right, and so I don't know, it's a really really beautiful thing that entire museum kind of blew me away. I am in love with it. So it's on my list to go back to. So we are jumping ahead a little bit here. Yes, we are jumping past the Spanish Civil War, but I promise you're going to get some in upcoming episodes because I want to talk about a more recent event. But to talk about this event, which was a protest that happened at the monastery in nineteen seventy, we first have to talk about the Basques and an extremist group that grew out of the Basque desire for self governance. So, just as an expectations management here, this is a high level look at these ideological struggles, and we obviously cannot condense decades and even centuries in some cases of nuanced conflict down to a few paragraphs and capture everything. So please know that your understanding after you hear all this will be very basic. It's a very high level overview. So the Basque people are defined as an ethnic group originating in the western Pyrenees, on the Bay of Biscay, so the northern shore of Spain and into France, and for quite a while the Basque area, like Catalounia, has been involved in a dispute with Spain over its status as part of that country, with the issue of autonomy at the core of that. In eighteen ninety four, the Partido Nationalist of Osco, or the Basque Nationalist Party was formed, and it persisted in secret all through the Franco regime, but it had its own internal struggles. In the mid twentieth century, the Basque Nationalist Party fractured, with a breakaway group forming these Scottita Askatasuna that's the Basque Homeland and Liberty Party that's also known as the ETA. And a big reason for this fracture was that while most members of the Basque Nationalist Party wanted to continue to pursue their political goals peacefully as sort of a moderate Party, a smaller group felt like it was time to take up arms and physically fight for self determination. That fracture was catalyzed when Franco's regime, in an effort to quell Basque unrest, banned the Basque language and conducted a cultural genocide against the Basques. That smaller group that wanted more direct action formed the ETA, and even within the ETA, there were disparate factions with separate goals. So one branch in the ETA, the Nationalists, wanted Basque autonomy, essentially in the same way the Nationalist Party had, But another faction, which is sometimes called the ETA VII, made up of younger members, wanted to pursue a more Marxist approach to government than their ETA fellows, and they were also much more willing to take extreme measures to reach that goal. So the ETA became the target of the Franco regime. And while there were absolutely members of the ETA committing violent and terrorist acts, you will sometimes see it called a terrorist organization. The Spanish government would also just arrest people on even a whiff of suspicion that they had connection to or involvement in the ETA, and once detained that those people were treated terribly. They were beaten and tortured. Whether there was evidence of that connection or not. The ATA engaged in various illegal and violent activities, including robbing banks to maintain their financing. But in nineteen sixty eight, there were two murders that resulted in a massive effort on the part of the Franco led government to just shut the ETA down completely. The first murder victim was Jose Pardoner, who was a Spanish Civil Guard officer that's one of the country's national police forces, and he was shot on on June seventh, nineteen sixty eight, when he pulled over two of the founders of the etaight sabi Is Barrieta and Enachi Sarascietta, at a traffic stop. These two men fled the scene and they were stopped a second time, and during that second stop, Asbarrieta was killed. Yeah, for clarity, we did not get good pronunciation examples for those name, so apologies if you know them and they sound terrible, that is not Tracy's fault. I couldn't find a guide. The second murder victim was Militon Manzanes, who was an officer in the Spanish Secret Police, and he was killed outside his home on August second. This is characterized as retaliation for the death of extra Barrieta, but Manzanas also had a reputation as an incredibly brutal man who ordered arrests and tortures of Basque citizens. These two murders led to a massive effort on the part of the Spanish government to bring the responsible parties to justice, and ultimately sixteen Basques were brought in on accusations that they had participated in or aided in the murders. In a moment, we'll talk about how these legal proceedings played out and how Monsarrat came into the picture. But first you'll hear from the sponsors that keep Stepfimus in history class going. The trials which resulted from the arrests made after those two nineteen sixty eight murders was carried out in the city of Burgos. They are sometimes called the Burgos Show trials. One man, Francisco Isco, was accused of shooting Manzanas, and the other fifteen defendants were brought up on a variety of charges. Five of them, in addition to Isko, were accused of planning the murder of Manzanas, and the death penalty was sought for them. The others had all been accused of different crimes in service of the ETA, including things like robbery, bombings, and distribution of pro Basque and anti fas Franco materials. One woman, Maria Arenzazu, had no specific charges against her. These trials were actually courts martial, even though the defendants were not military personnel. This was a practice under Franco in which trials happened very quickly and sentencing was harsh, and the press was invited. A Spanish government seemed to believe that media coverage would show how quickly and forcefully terrorism was being dealt with, but it really had the opposite effect. While many of the reporters who witnessed the trials were from Spanish papers that supported Franco, there were also international journalists there who saw these proceedings as extreme and in violation of human rights. The prosecution's case had one big problem. There were confessions from some of these people to the murder of Manzanas, but all of those confessions had been given during torture, with no additional evidence in place. There was conflict in the courtroom throughout these trials, which ran from December third to December ninth, nineteen seventy, and even before the trial started, members of the ETA kidnapped West German Consul Eugen Biel. Although leaders within the ETA initially claimed that their organization had no involvement, this entire scenario was contentious and because of the murky information that was presented to prosecute the defendants, public opinion landed not really with the Franco regime, but with the Basques who were on trial. If you're wondering why that kidnapping didn't turn public opinion against the defendants, the Guardian explained it as being more about the ongoing problems with Franco in its reporting at the time, quote the issues of Basque nationalism as such are only an occasion for deeper protest at the depressed state of Spain thirty years after General Franco's crusade. This is one reason why the kidnapping of the West German Consul, deplorable as it is, has not undermined the anti Franco movement. The kidnapping was a blunder and has rightly been condemned by most of the movement. Even before this trial started, members of the Catholic Church had publicly stated that the death penalty should not be pursued. Many of the defendants used their time on the stand to shine a light on police brutality. Jizeus Abriscatta very plainly stated the reason he was part of the ETA in his examination, which was printed in the New York Times. He told the court that he joined the ETA when he first became aware of social oppression. He then described his arrest in his apartment along with his two friends, and how one of the men was abused and questioned there in the apartment after he had been shot in the chest by police and was begging for a doctor. He described extreme torture at the hands of police once they were brought to a station and booked as well. His descriptions were so graphic that the judge was like, let's move on. The cases concluded on December ninth, and then the weight began for the judges. There were seven to issue their verdicts. I also saw this reported once as having five judges. I wasn't able to conclusively see like a list of them to know which is the case, But there were multiple judges in this In these courts martial here's how all this relates to the monastery at Monserrat. While the world waited to learn the fates of the defendants, three hundred of Catalonia's prominent intellectuals staged a sit in at the monastery to protest the trials. This was done with the support of the Abbot. This protests started on the afternoon of Saturday, December twelfth, and by Sunday police had blocked all the roadways leading to the monastery and were patrolling the area. This was to be clear and illegal sit in, though the Abbot had approved it. Spanish law at the time forbid assemblies of more than twenty people without a government permit, and it speaks to the importance of the Monsarrat Monastery and its association with peace. It was a place that protesters were fairly confident and no one would barge in because it is considered such a sacred and important place, and the monastery was itself a place of protest in its own right. By this point, when the Catalan language had been banned in Spain, sermons continued to be delivered there in Catalan, and while the police sealed off the monastery so no one could go in, or out, even the monks. They did not actively interfere with the protesters, but they did, according to reports, shut down the telephone lines to the facility. That lockdown also meant that things like food and other supplies could not go in. This was not the only protest in Spain. While people waited to hear the verdict, there were so many that Franco ordered unlimited arrests throughout the country and expectation of the reaction once the verdict was issued. That meant they could arrest and hold anyone for up to six months and withhold any legal rights. This was a suspension of a provision within the country's constitution that gave citizens legal rights even outside of Franco's jurisdiction. In other countries, protests were staged that were openly critical of Franco. According to newspapers reports at a protest in Amsterdam, signs carried by protesters read quote Spain the tourists Mecca, but Liberty's tomb for the monsarrat protesters. Things ended peacefully. This, once again evidence is the high regard that the monastery was and is held in. Unlike other places throughout Catalogna and Spain, there were no arrests of protesters, and the protests only lasted a couple of days. The protesters became kind of concerned that the Franco government might do something to the monastery, so they negotiated that they would leave peacefully if their names were not recorded and no arrests were made. That was agreed to, but before vacating, they wrote and published a manifesto which included the following passage damning the Franco regime quote, the rights of the peace and nations which form the Spanish state are suppressed by an artificial national unity, and the present political and judicial system makes crimes of actions which in democracy are considered fundamental civil rights. On Christmas Day, a week after the Mansarat sident ended, Consul Eugenbiel was released by the ETA. The verdicts were released three days later. They acquitted one defendant, sentenced six to death, and then doled out a combined five hundred years of prison time to the rest of them. The whole thing was a media nightmare for Franco, and two days after the decisions he commuted the death sentences to life in prison. In nineteen seventy seven, two years after Franco's death, Spain's new amnesty law led to the release of all fifteen people who had been sentenced at these trials. The ETA continued to exist until it was disbanded in twenty eighteen. And those are a handful of events that happened in Montsarat that to me give you a bigger overview of what its importance is in Spanish and Catalonian history. Yeah, and hopefully we didn't bungle any of those details because some of these things are going through translators. Yeah, I'm gonna say we have another a Barcelona trip related episode coming up in the near future. And I had some similar struggles. Dim I get, Am I understanding this correctly? I hope? I hope. Fingers crossed, Fingers crossed? Do you have some listener mail? Yes, I'm still going to talk about Jack Landards. Look, I know we're into wintertime and there are other things going on. We're not quite in winter officially, but you know, we're into the winter holiday season, but it's always Halloween at my house. So I'm going to read this email from our listener, Carolyn, who writes HI, longtime listener, first time writer. While listening to your Jack o Lantern episode, I was reminded of the following story Worry About nine years after moving to London from the Midwest. I was talking to my coworkers about how excited I was to carve pumpkins with my toddler age son for the first time, and I was shocked to be met with blank stares from my coworkers. Halloween wasn't as big a deal in the UK in two thousand and five when we moved, but it had steadily been gaining a popularity, so I erroneously assumed my younger colleagues would be totally on board with this whole concept, but nope, they all thought I was crazy. Luckily, our neighborhood was much more Halloween friendly and our carved pumpkins were very warmly received. We live in Luxembourg now and there are enough expats here to provide a suitably Halloween atmosphere if you know which neighborhood to hit. It's also a tradition here to celebrate trolikt at the same time of year by carving spooky faces into turnips and beats and lighting candles and windows to protect yourself from the souls of the dead. She includes a link about Halloween in Luxembourg and says thanks for your hard work putting out such a great podcast. As Tax attached a photo of my son as a vampire squid from Halloween twenty eighteen and my cat Sophia Castrillo and Flavia Edith Beans. Sophia is the void and Flavia is the fluf and they are a bossy pair of con artists who claim they have never been fed. You know, I think there might be like a little secret school of cats where they teach each other how to look pathetic and like they've never been taken care of or eaten in their entire lives. Yeah, I am continually thankful that our cats are not like that about their meals, although they are like that about treats. We have a mixed bag since you have multiple cats. One of our cats will literally like look up from the bowl he's in if one of the other of us that did not feed him comes in the room and act like they were left out of the feeding proceedings, even when you can point and go, your food is right there, my dude. So he took the advanced level classes clearly. In any case, Thank you so much, Carolyn for sharing that story with us, It's always interesting to me. I have had other friends who have gone abroad, and their stories similarly of how they're like, it's Halloween and they kind of get blank stares always tickle me a little bit. Since it has become such a huge deal here and certainly it's a huge deal in my life. But if you would like to write to us and tell us your stories of holidays that don't go quite the same wherever you're at as to the way you grew up, you can do that at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on social media as Missed in History, and if you haven't subscribed and would like to, you can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.