In the late nineteenth century, a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist named L.L. Zamenhof offered the world a constructed language called Esperanto, believing that a shared, neutral tongue might dissolve the misunderstandings that breed conflict. The movement survived Nazi persecution, Soviet repression, and the global rise of English not by conquering the world but by quietly becoming something else — a voluntary community of people who chose connection over conquest. More than a thousand speakers gathered recently in Brno, Czech Republic, for the 110th World Esperanto Congress, a gathering that as
Why Esperanto's Idealistic Dream Refuses to Die
Esperantists faced severe persecution during WWII and Soviet era; Zamenhof's three children were murdered by Nazis; Titus Brandsma, an early Esperantist priest, was tortured and killed at Dachau.