Czech Republic Road Ways - TRAVEL - HISTORY - Two On The Loose

Jan Hus, Reformer - Heretical Views Sound Modern

2009-05-27T10:32:00.005-04:00

Here is Jan Hus, a statue in an unlikely place: Terezin, or Theresienstadt -- the Nazi-created ghetto / concentration camp-that was staged for purposes of Red Cross inspections as an ideal settlement place for Jews. In reality, it was a holding pen, a way station to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Jan Hus: a more famous statue is in Prague Square, see ://www.prague.cz/jan-hus-monument/ but it was being renovated and under nets and tarps when we were there. The pose in Prague is different, see ://pragueee.blogspot.com/2009/05/statue-of-jan-hus-1372-1415-prague.html/

Jan Hus: Why here? Unanswered. Is it the theme of martyrdom, persecution? See photos of Terezin at ://www.scrapbookpages.com/CzechRepublic/Theresienstadt/TheresienstadtGhetto/GhettoTour/Tour02.html

Jan Hus: What did he do to deserve the designation of heretic, and burn, as he did. See The Hussites at http://www2.kenyon.edu/projects/margin/hussites.htm/

He and his followers saw themselves as Christian, and devout. Their disagreement was not with the theology of the Church, but with its implementation of authority. His thought preceded the reform movement of Martin Luther. Some of his followers fled to Germany and Poland.

Hus favored these things:

1. People should be able to read the Bible in their own language; people are well able to interpret scripture for themselves; this same issue was fought and lost in Croatia, at Nin, by Bishop Gregory, Gregor of Nin, in the 10th Century. See Croatia Road Ways, Nin

2. Priests should stop engaging in sexual immorality and financial abuses;

3. All Christians should be allowed to receive full communion (only priests took the wine apparently in those days);

4. The Pope should not sell "indulgences" (buy your way out of sin?)

5. The Bible itself supersedes all the councils and authorities' views of it;

6. When accused of heresy, undermining the authority of the church, he said he would obey the Church if the Church could prove that what he said was error.

That did it. He put his own ability to interpret scripture ahead of the Church power to do so, and in 1418 he was executed.

Terezin On Stage - "Way to Heaven".. Theresienstadt.

2009-05-21T07:36:00.000-04:00

Terezin (Theresienstadt): More in Arts News

On stage: "Way to Heaven." A play by Juan Mayorga about the important Nazi staging aspect of Terezin, concentration camp billed as a settlement. For inspectors from the Red Cross in WWII, see the well-fed little children and happily working adults in fine conditions. And music, even. A New York Times calls it "a fake utopia," notes the "synthetic contentment." See ://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/theater/reviews/20heav.html/.

The playwright is Spanish. The play is offered in Spanish on alternate nights, adding to a universality concept in the issues, if not as to the actual nationality of persons kept, and shipped to Auschwitz and death camps from there.

This small post serves as a collection point for the reviews for future reference. See this characterization, "an audacious play about a monstrous wrong," at Classical Voice of North Carolina. See ://www.cvnc.org/reviews/2009/012009/Way.html/

Emerging themes: how we are duped, how we fail to act on hunches while being duped - liking the duping - and the clash of public view vs. concealed reality. Subtlety and daring prevail over the right.

Brundibar and The Music of Terezin - Josa Karas; Hans Krasa

2009-01-10T20:19:00.002-05:00

Terezin - a/k/a Theresienstadt, in German.

A Ghetto, A Concentration Camp

A Place of Death, Deceit, and Music?
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Sometimes it takes an obituary to fill in history not told elsewhere. And about a neighbor. And opera and symphonic works in a concentration camp.
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Josa Karas.

Here, we learn from the New York Times in 2008 (October 7, we think) that one Josa Karas died.
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He was born in 1926 in Warsaw, and apparently lived in Czechoslovakia. He collected the music of those imprisoned, many killed, at Terezein 1941-1941. He was 82, not a Jew, and apparently lived in nearby Bloomfield, here in the US. He began teaching at the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music in 1955.

We never knew. Obituary by Douglas Martin.
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Karas wrote the book, "Music in Terezin 1941-1945."
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The work of the composers was actually done in Terezin, that we visited and saw as a converted old army garrison with barracks with substantial brick walls and a grid of streets intersecting in orderly ways, in service in different capacities for several centuries.
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He collected 50 compositions, and those have been performed often. There were four concert orchestras there, many chamber groups, and an opera group - fodder for the Nazi propaganda about the fine conditions for living there.

Terezin.

When the Red Cross came to inspect, see "The Red Cross Visit to Theresienstadt," photos and text at ://www.scrapbookpages.com/czechrepublic/theresienstadt/theresienstadtghetto/history/redcrossvisit.html/, the old and sick were gassed. Flowers appeared in boxes, and there was a new "chocolate shop." The Red Cross was duly impressed and wrote a report of good conditions there for temporary housing for Jews.

See a propaganda film itself, at YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlIMAJF3kic, a "documentary" -"Theresienstadt: Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem judischen Seidlun." This may be a portion of a larger film on Auschwitz?

Read at that site the history of Theresienstadt, its early history, and death statistics.
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But it was a place of execution, death by disease, suffering, for some 140,000 Jews over time, including Petr Ginz, see Petr Ginz, Lens, Places, Lens and Legacy. See a photo of some of the children there at the time of the Red Cross visit, and an orchestra performing there, from the US Holocaust Museum Exhibit at ://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007463/
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Name names:

Composer Viktor Ullman, studied under Schoenberg;
also Hans Krasa,
Gideon Klein,
Pavel Haas.

Hans Krasa and "Brundibar."

Krasa had begun work on a children's opera in Prague with another musician, Adolf Hoffmeister, librettist; and it found its way to the ghetto-concentration camp at Terezin. See WNYC at ://www.wnyc.org/music/articles/22122He oversaw its performance, and it became a particular favorite at the camp (performed 55 times) - a children's opera, "Brundibar." See also "Welcome to Brundibar," at http://www.brundibar.ca/; and from PBS at http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/brundibar.html
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Mr. Karas did a revision for performances, and presented it in Czech in 1975, and in English in 1977. The story: two children, thwarted in getting milk for their ailing mother by an evil organ grinder.
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The obituary ends with a quotation from Mr. Karas: "When I started my research, I used to have nighmares. And guilt. I'd pick up a piece of chocolate and couldn't eat it." Then he got over it, saying that Czechs can get used to anything, even the gallows.

Hluboka nad Vltavou, Cesky Budejovice; Budvar Beer; Budweiser

2008-03-11T17:02:00.007-04:00

Ceske Budejovice, or Cesky Budejovice.

Its Budvar or Budweiser Beer

And its Castle

Beer Wars: The Czech Old Real Budweiser

Took On the Additive-Laden Foreign Interloper,

and the Old Real Won. BUDVAR

Here is a tale of two beers, a tale of a spunky town that faced down Anheuser Busch, a tale of marketing fairness. Update 12/2008 - the Czech Budweiser prevailed in the European litigation about who could use the name - the authentic, or the upstart. See National Post at ://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/legalpost/archive/2008/12/16/this-bud-s-for-the-eu.aspxl and European Voice at://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2008/12/budvar-wins-bud-case/63434.aspx/

American Budweiser Out. European Budweiser In. At least, as to use of the name "Budweiser" in some European markets. Then, visit the town itself.

I. The Brewskis.

"Budeweiser" beer to Europeans means a beer with two pedigrees:

a) specific ingredient restrictions apply if a mugfull of the amber consoler is to be called "beer" - purity rules called "Reinheitsgebot"); and

b) it has to be made in the town in the Czech Republic called Budvar or Budweis - or Budejovice here. Names and their spellings vary with the phonetics, the linguistic roots being applied. They probably can have their breweries also in other places, but the Budweis town and the Budweiser name stemming from it are basic.

Names portraying origins are given Respect. The name cannot be used by just anyone, even if patented later elsewhere, under different laws. Because this beer is made in Budvar, or Budweis in German (recall the days of fluid boundaries, the overlap of languages depending on dominant influences), it is entitled to use the name "Budweiser." The brewer also wisely patented the name in Europe decades ago, after centuries of use.

Our Budweiser" beer (courtesy of USA's Anheuser-Busch) from the US meets neither requirement, so cannot be marketed at Budweiser in much of Europe - not made in Budvar, and some ingredients to not make the cut. See Joy of Equivocating, Beer and the Cities, Cindy McCain, Budweiser.

II. The Town

The town is more than its beer. See the castle here - begun at the time of Bohemian Wenceslas I, see Nationmaster Encyclopedia at ://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Wenceslas-I-of-Bohemia. Its renovations and additions continued to Gothic to Renaissance to Baroque to Neo-Gothic. See ://www.castles.org/castles/Europe/Central_Europe/Czech_Republic/czech.htm.

Many castles begin in the mists, then undergo so many architectural changes as fads come and go, and rulers come and go, that there is little semblance left of the earliest. Some sites do not mention Wenceslas I, but the early date seems to be 11th-12th centuries.

Hluboka Castle gardens

The exterior is so freshly redone, as to look new.

Nearby is the town of Budweis, or Cesky Budejovice - Ceske Budejovice - home of Budvar Beer - Budweiser to you, see ://www.virtourist.com/europe/budejovice/index.html but no similarity in taste - very refined over there. We recall seeing some arrangement on using the name in both countries, US and CZ, but need to check. Pun pun. Excellent place to park and walk in the big square and eat. Always eat.

Budweiser and Americans: Back to basics.

The American beer company is the origin of the fortune shared by inheritance by many, including Senator John McCain's wife, Cindy. See the Joy of Equivocating site above.

Taste test. Budvar is indeed superior. Do your own scientific trials. Apparently there were years of litigating who could use the name "Budweiser" - the Budvars or not. And so the bottles of each show the separate identities. See ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud%C4%9Bjovick%C3%BD_Budvar for the story of Budejovicky Budvar, or Budejovice Budvar. American Budweiser has blitzed the advertising, however, so American Budweiser is popular, but to purists, it is not "beer" at all with its additives including, gasp, rice.

The site says that you find these additional names for the same European Budweiser beer in different countries:

1. US and Canada - Czechvar

2. Germany, the Czech Republic and UK - Budweiser Budvar

3. Rest of the world - Budejovicky Budvar

History. The brewery was authorized by Otokar II in 1265. A longstanding tradition, still disputed as to trademark by late-name and seeky heirs in the US. Ah, capitalism and the rewards always to the deserving. See the history of the inheritance at ://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/MutualFunds/McCainsWifeControlsFamilysRiches.aspx

Compare the "Budweiser" style of brewing to the "Pilsner" style, from Plzn, the Czech Republic.

Hluboka nad Vltavou - Centuries of Renovations - Wenceslas I to Gothic to Renaissance to Baroque to Neo-Gothic

2008-03-11T16:46:00.009-04:00

Hluboka Castle

Arrive in Prague, make your way south toward Cesky Krumlov, the medieval town that rivals (and surpasses) the German Rothenburg and Dinkelsbuh, we think, and see this on the way.

Many chateaux have early start dates, but undergo vast renovations through the centuries. That is so with Hluboka. Begins somewhere 11-12th Centuries.

One guidebook says founded by Wenceslas I; then this site says Premysl Otakar, see ://www.guidingprague.com/tour_menu/other_tours_CR/HlubokaCB. Need to see if they are one and the same - titles, earlier names, tracing can take time.

See the interior here at ://www.zamky-hrady.cz/1/hluboka-e.htm

Hluboka Castle Facade

Prague - Jan Amos Komensky, "The Teacher of Nations"

2008-02-12T16:06:00.001-05:00

Hear from the 17th Century:

"I led a wandering life. I had no homeland. I was constantly propelled from one place to another, never and nowhere did I find a permanent home."

Here is Jan Amos Komensky. Johann Amos Comenius; on a Czech korun.

He lived in Prague and other places including Heidelburg, Germany; educator, philosopher, writer, priest (Protestant), in exile after the re-Catholicization of Vienna reached the Czech nation.

Yet, he devised a school that advocated teaching through play; preschool work with the smallest pupils; that nations speak together (later a foundation in concept for The United Nations), and here he is - see http://www.radio.cz/en/article/25962.

The greater tribute to Komensky as a teacher - one who cares and not only reaches out, but is in position ready to grasp and help, is this depiction on on the reverse of the korun - see discussion at Bogomilia, Jan Amos Komensky.

Liberec - A quieter voice. Marian Column.

2007-09-17T01:49:00.000-04:00

Liberec has a modest plague column, those petitions in stone to Mary for relief from recurrence of the Black Death, or thanks for at least sparing some of the population.

This one was unusual because it is in the graveyard, unobtrusive, silent, not set in the showy loud middle of a square where it forces you to look. The column are is short. Overall, the impression is more like a solid, reliable pedestal than an overwhelming column with Mary up there somewhere.

There are many reminders in Europe that the plague hit everywhere and often. Here is a site with photos of Austrian Marian Columns, and references to others in Germany. The Austrian columns are tall and rounded, without the multiple figures and shapes on the Czech columns. See //campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/column. That source is a Marianist institution.

In the Czech Republic, the fashion for specific Plague columns appears to be from about 1715. They often show buboe-shaped tumescences and scenes of sufferers or saints. Plague was intermittent and devastating for centuries before that, however. See its course in 1348, and people's group and individual response patterns, at //www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/plague.

See the huge lump-type columns in more central towns, like Kutna Hora, see later post here. We did not get to Olomouc CZ, the town with an enormous one, but do an images search for it. O-l-o-m-o-u-c. How could Mary ignore its shouting.

I like this simple one, nestled in Liberec. Please, help me. A small supplication amid the dead. Do see Liberec.
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* Why Mary and what is behind the column structure? Hers is not our particular tradition, but anyone can wonder - why turn to that particular person in times of devastation.

Finding out is roundabout. The UDayton site, //campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/column, collects these explanations for Mary on top of columns:, examples include showing her rectitude, firm faith; she is shown leaning against a column in early art and that shows she did not have labor pains ("dolor"?); the column anticipates the suffering of the future; points to the end of pagan religion; mostly date from 15th-17th centuries, but there are reported such columns 1oth and 15th centuries; the round shape lets pilgrims move around it; stand for the Counter-Reformation; were votive, pilgrimage and rallying points. There is a list of exhibits of Marian art held at UDayton - none explore the Marian columns. //campus.udayton.edu/mary//exhgrp.

The theme continues. Here is a modern memorial, a technically non-Marian column, but highly evocative, as here in Levoca, Slovakia. See Slovakia Road Ways.

From a distance: The woman and child at the top look like a modern (medieval or renaissance dress) representation of madonna and child, but instead represent the women killed, shunned or tortured during the Inquisition and related periods, or merely caged for "immorality," as the explanation is now given at Levoca. Even the cage is on display. "The Burning Time" or "The Burning Times" are books on the topic of witch-type or paganistic persecutions, do a search for the titles. See also //www.religioustolerance.org/wic_burn1. and its overview, literature and research.

Liberec - Waldstein Houses, Crystal in the Castle, Square

2007-09-14T17:31:00.000-04:00

Liberec is in the northwest corner of the Czech Republic, Northern Bohemia, near the German border. It is a town that grew at the crossroads of several trade routes.

Here is its castle, lovely reds and yellow ochres,. The castle is becoming a showplace for lovely local glass, crystal and jewelry. Northern Bohemia is known for that. See //www.glass.cz/help-visit.asp.

Near the square is a small row of half-timber craftsmen and weavers' houses, called the Waldstein Houses, dating from 1678-1681. Here they are - but compare these cramped camera angles to the elegant photos that the tourist bureau is able to take, probably with dangling cranes to suspend the photographer by the feet for the purpose. At street level, there is no glamorous vista reachable, especially with the large size of the facades. See the small windows, because glass and oiled paper cost.

Read about half-timber construction at //architecture.about.com/library/blgloss-halftimbered. The spaces between the timbers were filled with rubble, broken dishes, or daub and wattle, very ecologically sound, then plastered. Using oak for timbers means long-lasting strength. It became a fancy art form in Britain and elsewhere. See www.britannica.com/eb/topic-252413/half-timber-worksee.

This view shows how short the row of houses is, and that only the front parts of the buildings really survived. The rest of the structures are incorporated in a modern apartment building. At least they preserved this much. Excellent.

Liberec is in a mountainous area, with castles on hilltops. And traffic jams at rush hour, like anywhere. See //www.infolbc.cz/indexen; and terrain shown at . liberec.turistik.cz/en/. Now that we are back, I wonder if the castle we thought was in Slovakia is really here, outside Liberec. We did stop and just take pictures as we went. Look at Slovakia Road Ways at the Zilina post.

There is a fine town square, with an excellent town hall - remember that towns only got their marketing privileges from the reigning monarch, and had to keep up appearances. Rudolph II (see Iron Man post in Prague about him) gave Liberec its market "license" status. Choose a cafe with umbrellas, feet up a little, aahh. There is a Liberec webcam posted here, but I gave up on the load time. You try at www.webcams.cz/webcam.php#.

Why Liberec? Sometimes, pick a town in a new area that is in the range of something else and just relax and go see. We were leaving Thieriesensdadt, or Terezin, the ghetto-concentration camp - where Petr Ginz and others were sent, and most then died, there or at a subsequent extermination or labor camp. This town is nearby, and we thought we had some time before Plzen and Prague. So, see a regular town, then circle down to the Big Prague.

Kutna Hora - UNESCO, Plague Column

2007-09-14T13:16:00.000-04:00

1. The Plague Column - see the base, with its prayers and invocations; as well as the tall structure. There is usually Mary at the top, with a crown of stars. Do an images search for marian plague column, and you can see the type, and its components in European town squares, especially in eastern or central Europe.

Kutna Hora has a fine plague column. The town is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

This is what it was like to have Plague. See historymedren.about.com/od/theblackdeath/a/death_defined. No wonder people rejoiced in 1715 that only half the population died from it, and the survivors were spared.

Some tours are organized totally around UNESCO sites - see //www.czechadventure.cz/en/tours/Sightseeing-tours/One-Week/Czech-Republic-Unesco-Heritage-Trail. We see the ones nearby wherever we are, and do see most of them. Here is a photo site of Czech Republic Highlights, with a fine Marian or Plague column view here at Kutna Hora. richard-seaman.com/Travel/CzechRepublic/Highlights/index.

Kutna Hora - UNESCO - Cathedral of Saint Barbara

2007-09-13T13:29:00.002-04:00

With tree branches, hard to get a clear shot, but you at least can see the flying buttresses here - unusual and difficult with largely brick construction, so there are so many. The roof resembles a peaky crown. Thirteenth-Fourteenth Centuries, some variation between sites on exact dates. History at www.travel.cz/guide/126/index_en.

Designed by John Parler, son of Peter Parler who built the great St. Vitus in Prague.

Here is a site about Saint Barbara herself, about 300 AD, at //sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar. She was tortured and beheaded by her own father when he returned to find his bath house design redone by Barbara, who had converted to Christianity in his absence, and put in windows to resemble the trinity. She later became associated with safety from gunpowder, a patroness of artillerymen.

Then again, this site points out how little is known, how many centuries passed before any mention, and etc. See www.newadvent.org/cathen/02284d. Her life is to remind people of anger?? See www.newadvent.org/cathen/02284d.

Kutna Hora - mining,double gate?

2007-09-13T13:29:00.001-04:00

We may prove ourselves wrong here, but we think this nice double gate, one for each line of traffic, and ease in collecting taxes/tolls, is Kutna Hora.

Still checking.

Meanwhile, here is a fine history of Kutna Hora and its mining - silver. See//chramsvatebarbory.cz/kutna-hora-history.

Kutna Hora: On the Way. Charnel House, walled church grounds

2007-09-12T08:34:00.000-04:00

Destination: We were headed elsewhere, to a glamorous and elaborate ossuary or charnel house* at Sedlec, at a monastery in another direction outside Kutna Hora. Someone there in the 19th century constructed chandeliers and sconces and other Martha Stewart decorations, made of what you happen to have on hand, here hands themselves, bones and skulls. Out of mass graves from Plague or other war times. The Thirty Years' War also slaughtered many religiously motivated combatants, early 17th century.

The stop instead. We never got to Sedlec. See what we found instead, on the side of the road on the way to Kutna Hora: a traditional old walled church-defense complex, no signs, and its authentic charnel house. No designer additions.

Floor to ceiling, respectfully and neatly stacked bones and skulls, in an octagonal charnel house,* open windows except for the bars. There was a caretaker, watching us as he worked in the churchyard, but not following.

The old walled church complexes:

These consist of a thick, high wall, a built-in tower that appears for defense and lookout, in a traditional architectural shape of a square tower and peaked roof like a witch's hat, atop another and much larger square structure below.

That tower on tower shape would be good for defense because ladders could not be put all the way up. But bad because the wood would ignite.

Then there is a free-standing church building inside, and another free-standing building, the charnel house.

There is the octagonal charnel house here, skulls and bones, just behind the church.

There is a similarly small charnel house, that does invite visitors inside, in very small groups, very respectful, at Kudowa Zdroj, Poland. See post at Poland Road Ways. Mass graves were a necessity. Do a search for mass graves plague, and find them at Venice, Athens, all over Europe.

The church's graveyard with individual headstones is here just inside the walls.

Yale would love this. Maybe they would be motivated to return Geronimo. See//www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2006_05/notebook. See//www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/02/60minutes/main576332.shtml.

Advantage of the sudden find: Slow walk around, breathe in, breathe out, stretch, sit, think back, then with so much else to see, we skipped Sedlec.

See other posts on Kutna Hora, and overview of the town at //thesalmons.org/lynn/wh-czech.

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* You can take a virtual tour of Sedlec yourself. At Sedec, we had read that the bones of plague and/or thirty-years' war victims were arranged in the 19th century in patterns and chandeliers. Many tour books feature this extravaganza. See the photos of all this at //richard-seaman.com/Travel/CzechRepublic/Highlights/index.

Charnel houses are a practical approach to small graveyard areas: after a time, dig up and place all together in one building. Usually these are careful arrangements, from the tidy stack to the more bizarre decorative type, see the one we saw in Poland at _____________ and here is another one in Austria (that we did not see) at www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Austria/Bundesland_Oberoesterreich/Hallstatt-329225/Things_To_Do-Hallstatt-BR-1.

Driving in the Czech Republic

2007-09-11T10:49:00.000-04:00

Just because a square is empty of cars does not mean you are welcome to park yours there.

Always good to check the rules before you launch. Start at //www.stopin-prague.com/blog/driving-in-czech-republic.

Some rules. Note this - instead of paying tolls on non-motorways, buy a highway coupon (at a gas station) and stick it to the windshield. Lights on at all times. In a traffic jam, cars must create a lane for emergency vehicles. An unbroken yellow line to the right means no parking. "Stopping" is permitted, however. An accident with property damage about 2500 or more must be reported to police. No radar detectors. If an accident, there are procedures to follow, read up.

At this site, copy and paste enough in another browser to get to the home page, then navigate to the rest until you get there. //www.ispsca.cz/newcomers/docs/New%20Czech%20Road%20Regulations%20-%20July%202006.pdf

Alcohol. As in many parts of Europe, blood alcohol tolerance is zero. Find where you are going to stay, park and stay there. Period. Pick a place where you can walk to your supper, and to libations if you indulge.

Road signs, speed limits. That site also lists common road signs, in Czech with translation, gives speed limits (you can't go as fast as legend here in US says about Europe), parking rules and other vitals. And reproduces the symbols and what they mean. They are not always obvious, so carry them with you. Your guide book may not have all of them. For example, a big red empty circle means absolute prohibition to any vehicle going there. Some show a car with a line through. That means no four-wheeled vehicles.

NOTE ALSO. Go slow if you travel in spring and fall, when there might be freezes. Some countries restrict sand and salt use to only the most major roads.

Rentals. Rent your car from an Eastern European country if your travel is mostly there. There may be restrictions from Vienna, for example, in driving to or insurance covering certain places for concern of car theft. Know these in advance, and fly in with information in advance. We make rental arrangements from US, and check it all out there first.

The Diary of Petr Ginz - Places of Petr Ginz. The Occupation.

2007-09-11T05:06:00.001-04:00

Petr Ginz was a boy in Prague during the German occupation. He kept a diary, now published in English in 2007 as "The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-42." Locations that Petr Ginz names, or where he went, are laid out now in photographs and comments at a Europe Road Ways companion blog, Places of Petr Ginz.

The places include references to Prague, where the family lived; Plzen, nearby, where there is a great synagogue; Hradec Kralove, his Christian mother's home town -here is a picture of some Renaissance sgraffito * on the side of a building in Hradec Kralove; and the Sudetenland, on the German border, where others were from.

Petr was sent at 14, the age when Mischling children were to be separated from their families, to the ghetto created at the old garrison town of Theresienstadt (Terezin); and ultimately to Auschwitz, at the town of Osweicim (Auschwitz), Poland, where he was killed.

The war references are poignant, yet matter-of-fact. See Places of Petr Ginz, Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich at St. Cyril's Church. Also see the 1975-76 film, "Operation Daybreak," for views of Prague itself, and a tragic, courageous war story of the Czech Resistance and the assassination.
The diary was discovered in 1993 in the Jewish museum in Jerusalem, along with some of his drawings and science fiction and other writings. It is edited by his sister, Chava Pressburger, who adds an introduction and parts of her own diary; and translated by Elena Lappin, Atlantic Monthly Press NY 2007. Meet Ms. Pressburger at www.radio.cz/en/article/63435.

Petr is a child of a mixed Jewish-Aryan marriage, called a Mischling by the Nuremberg laws of the German occupation in WWII. See www.owlnet.rice.edu/~rar4619/nuremburg.html.

A "Mischling" could be designated in various degrees from pure Aryan. See www.holocaust-history.org/short-essays/nuremberg-laws.shtml. The concept was "mongrel," as seen when you do an Images search for Mischling. All dogs on the first page, except for a copy of a Nazi certificate for Mischling I.

The panorama of his short life ended at his age 16 in Auschwitz, a concentration camp that also had held Anne Frank for a time, I understand, before she was sent to her death at another camp, Bergen Belsen, not far away.
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* Sgraffito - a building decoration technique, layers of colored material, then scrape off top layers in drawing or other patterns. Scroll down this photo website and see the sgraffito - //richard-seaman.com/Travel/CzechRepublic/Highlights/index.

Cheb, The Sudetenland - The town's belly-tilt

2007-08-16T04:24:00.000-04:00

The town is known in German as Eger. Here are the German Merchant Houses that date from medieval times - the foundation and ground floor to first floor are reinforced to bear the weight of the floors below, but there are additional tilts visible also. See the square at www.mestocheb.cz/html/e_kamera.htm

The Sudetenland is near the German border, and the area has been in the middle of conflict for centuries - its location is the best entry to Bohemia from the northwest. www.britannica.com/eb/article-9022726/ChebSee also the blog on Places of Petr Ginz for more photographs and information posts on Cheb.

The area's identity goes back to 870AD, and the name to 906AD. The territory was annexed by Hitler in the 1938. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheb. Then was made part of the Czech area again, and feelings run fierce, see people.bu.edu/crr/ICWA%20for%20Web/Awakening.htm.

Roland, son of Charlemagne and the fountain statue here looking like a wild man, signifies that the town had official market privileges. Seewww.mestocheb.cz/html/e_pamatky.htm.

Cheb, The Sudetenland - The Castle. Renaissance stove.

2007-08-15T09:59:00.001-04:00

First, the creature comforts of a Renaissance stove, the ceramic wood-burning stove at Cheb Castle. Stoves like this are in homes, castles, anywhere that a relatively efficient heating system was needed. For many, there were ducts and outlets to chimneys for heating the entire place; and many such stoves.

For a look at the role of this kind of stove in theology, lite, see Martin Luther's Stove in Wittenberg.

There he mentored many fellow philosopher-theologians. Behind it, as in many such situations, there resided a third party mischief-maker.

Now that we are warmed up, what happened here.

This Romanesque fortress castle was originally built by the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa - Red Beard. See more of Barbarossa at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_I,_Holy_Roman_Emperor. For the castle itself, see www.marianskelazne.cz/en/turistika-volny-cas/tips-for-trips/. Scroll down to Cheb. It dates from the 12th century, at a place of earlier Slavic settlements 10th-11th centuries. See www.mestocheb.cz/html/e_pamatky.htm. See also the Cheb-Sudetenland posts at The Places of Petr Ginz, from a boy's diary while living in Prague 1941-1942.

The old "Sachsen" area of Germany-area borders on the Bohemia of the old maps, and ethnic groups have lived on both sides - see the map of the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th Century at www.geocities.com/wenedyk/ib/hre_map.html. Watch European boundaries shift at historymedren.about.com/library/atlas/blathredex.htm.

The area came to unwanted prominence when Adolph Hitler visited and then took it over by annexation. The location is strategic for moving from the northwest into Bohemia. See Adolph Hitler annexed the Sudetenland in 1938, see www.spectacularslovakia.sk/ss2001/snp.html,

There is a fine chapel, and a large undercrypt-type space beneath. In some areas, the vast undercrypts of churches, with the huge supporting pillars, were used as bomb shelters.

Undercrypts were used for burials, places for valued items, special chapels. Some have a hole in the ceiling that brings in light, covered in a transparent material, if you look up, goes straight to a mosaic or other symbol or religious figure on the ceiling (way up there) of the main sanctuary.

Austerlitz , Slavkov- near Brno. The Three Generals

2007-08-13T10:59:00.000-04:00

Austerlitz was pivotal in its day, 1805. See www.austerlitz.org/en/. Napoleon's victory against Russia and Austria. See www.napoleonguide.com/battle_austerlitz.htm

To tackle this, stay in Brno (we didn't) and go to the Austerlitz area on its own. We drove right past Brno, expecting to find a focused battle area at Austerlitz, with plenty of accommodations and all well marked. Not so.

There will be a small sign on the motorway showing a Napoleon symbol - that turns out to be near the tree where he watched the battle at dawn. No more. And then you are on your own to find where in the huge battle area, almost without bounds, there might be the monument we saw in the guidebook.

To find it, we finally asked a pedestrian who then offered to show us because his house was on the way, so in he came. Lordy watching over little sparrows and us, it was fine and we all had fun. And got there. And then came back to get a place to stay. Also no problem.

The monument was lovely at sunset, out in the country still, wide expanses of open space where battle and skirmish and blood and shouts took over at one time. Did all this effort and killing mean anything in the long run. It delayed the downfall of Napoleon to 1812, some seven years later. See www.sparknotes.com/history/european/napoleonic/section9.rhtml (that is a student exam-crib source - take a look).

Plzen - Pilsen - The Great Synagogue, World War II, Marian Column

2007-08-13T09:57:00.000-04:00

Plzen is more than the home of pilsner.

Its square features a fine Marian or Plague Column, erected in the 1700's in gratitude for deliverance, or to ward of future infection. See www.zcu.cz/plzen/landm/plague-col.html

The American General George Patton liberated it with his tanks in World War II, and here is the memorial with the rare sentiment these days, "Thank you, America." Patton is buried at the Hamm Military Cemetery at Luxembourg. See Luxembourg Road Ways. Read about it, and the later soviet rewrite, at www.praguepost.com/articles/2007/05/09/heroes-welcome.php.

Jews have lived in the area of the Czech Republic for a thousand years, at about 2 1/2% of the population, until WWII. See www.bethor.org/articles/czechtorah2001.html.
Some 80,000 were killed in WWII's "final solution." See www.radio.cz/en/article/78537.

The Great Synagogue in Plzen is third largest in the world, after Jerusalem and Budapest. Read about synagogues and see a full-length Plzen photo at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogue. There is no congregation left there now.

See Places of Petr Ginz for more photographs and information posts on Pilsen - Plzen. He was a boy in Prague who kept a diary in 1941-1942, and the places he writes about are researched and photos offered also there.

Hradec Kralove - The Places of Petr Ginz - His mother's town

2007-08-13T09:54:00.001-04:00

Hradec Kralove was the home town of the mother of Petr Ginz. Please shift to the blog on Places of Petr Ginz for more photographs and information posts on Hradec Kralove. Petr's mother (who was not Jewish) was from Hradec Kralove, and she visited there from Prague. Other relatives came to Prague to see the family, bringing special foods from the country.

Do read "The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-42," the entries by this 12-14-year old child of a mixed Jewish-Aryan marriage during the occupation, and his art and other writing, now published in English after its discovery in 1993 and publication in Europe. It is edited by his sister, Chava Pressburger, and translated by Elena Lappin, Atlantic Monthly Press NY 2007. Unlike Anne Frank, who was in hiding with limited things to do, Petr was out and in school, doing errands, watching family members taken away, and in direct experiential contact with everyday Nazi horrors.

The panorama of his short life (he died in Auschwitz, as did Anne Frank) includes Prague, where he lived with his family during the occupation; and incudes references to Plzen, Hradec Kralove, the Sudetenland, then Terezin or Theresienstadt ghetto, where he was taken; and ultimately to Auschwitz - Osweicim, Poland, where he was killed.

Hradec Kralove - Clock tower, Plague Column (Marian Column)

2007-08-12T19:55:00.000-04:00

Travel perils. Out the hotel window was the clock tower, there in the center. Bad idea. Bong. And, the long hand points to the hour and the short hand points to the minute, so use your watch instead.

At one time, the silence of these towers was not welcome, but foreboding. Young teenager Petr Ginz, in his newly-translated "Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942," see www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/12/arts/diary.php, wrote in Prague at page 94, "You can't hear any bells ringing at all, because the Germans have confiscated them all; they will probably make cannons out of them." Only one bell remained.

Include those reversed hands, for fun, in what to see in Hradec Kralove. Petr Ginz had relatives frm Hradec, who came to visit the family in Prague. Looking for the page.

Plague Columns.

See overview and photos at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_and_Holy_Trinity_columns. There are many in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, many with Mary at the top, in thanks for deliverance from the epidemic about 1715 or so. Saints, haloes of stars, moving prayers about pestilence (From sudden death, Good Lord, deliver us, or similar words that echo in our own day).

Hradec at night.

Prague - Wenceslas Square

2007-08-09T12:59:00.000-04:00

Please shift to the blog on Places of Petr Ginz for more information posts on Prague.

Prague -the Jewish Quarter - Art collection, scenes

2007-08-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

Visit this site for paintings of the Jewish Quarter - artist Adolf Kohn, at http://www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/akhon.htm. He was born in 1868, and the views of an earlier time are a welcome contrast to the crowds of today. And the sadness of knowing what came after.

Prague at War - World War II - Operation Anthropoid; The Diary of Petr Ginz

2007-08-05T12:20:00.000-04:00

This Church, the Karel Boromejsky Church, Orthodox, also known as Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, * was instrumental in Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of the Nazi Reinhard Heydrich by Czech partisans on an allied mission. The partisans, betrayed by other Czechs, were hidden by the priests here, then were trapped and killed.

See an overview at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid.

The members of the team that conspired and carried out the mission successfully are at the left in the photo exhibit there.

They are heroes to many Czechs. See www.radio.cz/en/article/28416. Some disagree because of the horrific extent of the later reprisals, see the mass murders at Lidice at www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-lidice.htm, for example.

The partisans were paratroopers and held out in the crypt at the church, in New Town. There are bullet holes still in the outside walls, and the crypt area. Find it with a simple Images search for Bormejsky Church. There are photos of Heydrich also there.

See a detailed account, with graphic photographs of events prior, during and the reprisals afterwards, at www.militaryphotos.net/forums/index.php. There it is - at the entry labeled "

Amethystfretchen

06-11-2005, 02:42 PM

OPERATION ANTHROPOID:
THE GERM-BOMB ASSASSINATION OF REINHARD HEYDRICH"

Here are some of the news photos and accounts at the Church.

And below is the map of Prague, showing the safe houses - many of these had been betrayed by a Czech turncoat, leading to information of the location of those carrying out the assassination.

The pins represent the safe houses during the war.

That lower level is now a shrine, with the story told in maps and exhibits, and entry provided into the crypt itself.

Petr Ginz. Read his account. He was there in Prague at the time. See Places of Petr Ginz.

In "The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-42," Atlantic Monthly Press 2004, translation into English 2007, read his daily logs and other writings. He was about 13 at the time.

Petr Ginz describes the news of the assassination at entries as follow:

Page 108 27.V.1942 (Wednesday) through page 114 20.VI.1942.

Imagine your own child living in those times.

He writes, here in summary, that there was a bomb assassination attempt, a state of emergency declared, orders to stop or be shot, reward for information and shooting of the person and family if there is holding back, 8 people shot for harboring unregistered people, naming a person sought, 45 people shot for publicly approving the assassination, more rewards from SS and the Protectorate government, 18 more people shot for hiding unregistereds, 250 Jews shot, 250 deported to concentration camps, school closed after (he thinks) someone was shot looking out the window, older girls taken and their hair washed because the Germans were looking for a blonde who assisted the assassins, attacks in Berlin and 250 Jews shot and 250 more to concentration camps, flags at half mast for the (believed) death of Heydrich, confirmation of the death, Jews can't go out to many places, train carrying the body gone to Berlin and buried, big massacre near Kladno where apparently a transmitter was found, and so on. Then the deadline for the assassin to give up or be handed over. One might be caught already.

And then, "I heard they caught the assassins in Boromejsky church. The chaplain hid them there. When Eva (Petr's sister) walked past it she heard shooting ad she saw shattered windows. Again they executed 153 people." Petr Ginz at page 114.
Page 109 29.V.1942 (Friday); 30.V.1942 (Saturday); 1.V. 1942(Sunday); 1.VI 1942 (Monday)
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Of interest to Hartford, Connecticut, where Colt guns were made. One of the weapons used in the assassination was a Colt. That is stated in one of the glass-enclosed exhibit boxes. See also www.timelapse.dk/models.php. See also www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf. See the exhibit at the State Library, www.cslib.org/coltarms.htm, and its military history at www.colt.com/mil/history.asp.

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* That Boromejsky Church where the partisans were killed had been dedicated to the Saints Cyril and Methodius. Cyril and Methodius were brothers who came from Thessaloniki, Greece, in about 863, and originally converted the Czechs and other now Eastern European national groups to Christianity.

Later, when the Roman Catholic branch of Christendom split from the Orthodox, the Roman branch overcame (read, killed) the Orthodox who had not been converted through them, see post on the Teutonic Knights in Poland Road Ways in Poland, and James Michener's book, "Poland."

These early figures from the Orthodox branch are greatly revered. See them on the Charles Bridge, Prague, at www.prague.net/gallery/statues-on-charles-bridge/pic2.php. See more about the Orthodox Christians and their roots and history at www.orthodoxinfo.com/general/orthodoxy.aspx, and at www.czech.cz/en/czech-republic/history/the-arrival-of-cyril-and-methodius-to-great-moravia/

Prague - Legends. The Iron Man, Marianske Square

2007-08-05T11:54:00.000-04:00

Prague, of course, is haunted. See www.grandtimes.com/Rambling_with.html. And, oooh, www.afallon.com/europe/places/prague.htm. And www.expats.cz/prague/article/czech-culture/haunted-prague/.

Just because a town is haunted, however, does not mean everyone is spooky. For example, this fellow, also known as the Iron Knight, looks the stuff of horror, but may represent Rodulph II who went to the Jewish Quarter to see his love. She is there at his feet in despair, says this site, www.remunda.com/travel/review/prague_monuments.html.

Look closely, lower left - that is her head all disheveled and hanging low, and her legs limply dangle while he strides above, almost (not really) like fourth position, www.dgillan.screaming.net/stage/th-frames.html?http&&&www.dgillan.screaming.net/stage/th-ballet3.html. The site says, however, that she is hiding her face for shame at the "sin" of falling in love with a Christian.

Story does not hold together - she looks quite dead. Murdered even. Sin? Bother him? Not a whit. Plus ca change.

Read about Rudolph II Habsburg, 1583-1612, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia and Hungary, a great patron of the arts, at www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/hd/rupr/hd_rupr.htm, a paper by Jacob Wisse, Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University.

For the world's best timeline site, go to the Metropolitan Museum site at www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/ht/08/euwc/ht08euwc.htm. Click on whatever timeline area interests you and suddenly clarity is yours.

The site references an alternate explanation, involving some "O Udence" in Platnerska Street, and a sign now in the "town museum." I am now looking up O Udence. My family is hungry but I am distracted.

Only get "jurisprUDENCE". Now for Platnerska. Found this map-photo of the street: www.prague.es/map/platnerska/6/.

Prague - Charles Bridge - Vltava River

2007-08-05T09:38:00.000-04:00

The Charles Bridge. Place of saints and and some nonsense and the rest of us. Here is a one-man band, with the view back to New Town, complete with umbrella against the drizzle. Street performers worldwide. That is the Powder Gate, the dark tower; and Wenceslas Square, at the dome.

And look below. Without the Vltava River, no Charles Bridge as we know it. Here it is, passing beneath the Bridge, the bank at New Town to the left, the Little Quarter to the right. The hillside leads up to the castle and St. Vitus Cathedral area.

And without the icebreakers at the base of the support piers to the bridge, no Charles Bridge. Here they are - the massive bulwarks to break up the ice before the chunks can smash the bridge.

This bridge - there are the icebreakers again - dominates most panoramic views of Prague, and is lined with saint after saint, and groupings of saints, and some saints and non-saints. Wikipedia gives the full list, but go elsewhere for verifiable facts about each : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statues_on_Charles_BridgeFor photos, go to /www.sunpillar.net/bridgestatue.html. Some are familiar already, like Saint Wenceslas;

He appears twice: here at one end of the bridge in company with St. Norbert and St. Sigismund, not shown; and here on his own at the other end of the bridge. Begin and end with Wence. From whence.

Other saints become familiar because of statues in other towns,.

For example, Saint John of Nepomuk who was an advisor to a queen and thrown off a bridge for refusing to break her confidence on demand of the king. He is at many, if not most, bridges. He joins the other saints on the bridge. See him here: members.tripod.com/romeartlover/Domino0.html; and for the encyclopedic summary (check facts yourself) at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nepomucene

The Vltava River, has flooded often - see the water levels on the ladder-marker on the bank. See www.prague.net/blog/article/122/the-vltava-river-in-prague. See photos from disastrous 2002 at www.internationalfloodnetwork.org/04/rep_02eurPS(P1).pdf.
More at www.jskelly.com/pragueflood.html.

Take a little boat trip, or a long one, now that all is quiet again. Go down the stairs to under the bridge at the New Town side, choose your size boat, get a free beer or soda, and bag of pretzels, and wait for the boat to fill. Not long. And the wait is sweetened. There is even music.