Prague

Prague is the city in the Czech Republic where Austerlitz was born. He lived here for the first four and a half years of his life with his mother Agáta Austerlitzová and father Maximilian Aychenwald. After Austerlitz learns his mother's name and last address from the state archives building in the Karmelitská, he travels to Prague for the first time since his childhood. While moving through the city, Austerlitz finds himself "back among the scenes of [his] early childhood" (150). He cannot "recognize [any]thing for certain," but feels as his buried memories are "revealing themselves to [him] not by means of any mental effort but through [his] senses" (150). The cobblestone, edifices, almond trees, and window gratings all trigger Austerlitz's childhood past. Returning to the home of his childhood therefore helps him to reacquaint himself with this hazy era of his former life.

While here, Austerlitz spends time...