** CZECH REPUBLIC 2009  - Weeks 8~10 **

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This web edition is dedicated to the lasting memory of the Czech villages of  LEŽÁKY  and  LIDICE,
and the 420 innocent men, women and children systematically murdered by barbaric German reprisal atrocities in June 1942

CZECH REPUBLIC 2009 - Central and Northern Bohemia:

Across open agricultural countryside, we passed into Central Bohemia to approach the town of Kutná Hora. With the discovery of rich silver deposits in the 14th century, Kutná Hora became one of Bohemia's most wealthy towns, second only in importance to Prague. King Václav II founded the royal mint here, bringing in German miners to exploit the silver seams and Italian silver-smiths to produce the silver Prague Groschen (pražské groše), coins widely used through-out Central Europe because of their high silver content, literally worth their weight in silver. Kutná Hora's wealth from its silver and its prestigious position as royal mint was used for the construction of magnificent churches.
 

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With the Hussite and Thirty Years Wars, and the 16th century drying up of the silver deposits, Kutná Hora's importance declined and today is a small provincial town of 20,000 population. The great monuments of its silver mining heyday still decorate the town, particularly the magnificent masterpiece of St Barbara's Cathedral (patron saint of miners), one of Central Europe's great Gothic doms, and our main reason for visiting the town (Photo 1 - Gothic Cathedral of Saint Barbara at Kutná Hora). The church's upper structure bristles with pinnacles, turrets and flying buttresses in a fanfare of Gothic splendours supporting the three-towered roof. The plain Gothic nave with its lofty ribbed vaulting was largely uncluttered, leaving the eye to focus on the magnificent carved wooden altarpiece of the Last Supper (Photo 2 - Gothic interior and carved wooden altarpiece of Kutná Hora Cathedral). Medieval frescoes around the ambulatory depicted Kutná Hora's 15th century silver miners and coin-minters at work.

The former fortress of Hrádek housed the Silver Museum, a unique feature of which was a 400m long medieval silver mining tunnel running 40m below the town. Kitted out with period miners' work-wear, hard-hats and lamps, we were led along the narrow shaft, and later shown the smelting processes. For three centuries, coins were minted at the town's Vlašský dvůr (Italian Court) named after the Italian craftsmen brought in to produce the coins which were the source of the town's wealth, the Groschen and later under Habsburg rule, silver Thalers which gave us the modern currency name of dollars.

The suburbs of Kutná Hora house another curiosity, some might say a grotesque monstrosity - the Ossuary (kostnice) of Sedlec. When holy soil from Golgotha was sprinkled over the Monastery graveyard, anyone who was anyone in Bohemia wanted to be buried here; plagues and pestilence over the centuries added to the 1000s of burials and the bones piled up. By 1870, something had to be done about the overflowing ossuary and František Rint was charged to solve the problem of skeletal excesses. Rising to the challenge, he created four enormous pyramids of human bones which now fill the corners of the ossuary, covered the walls with skeletal decorations, all lit by a chandelier made up of every bone in the human body. And over 100 years later, this bizarrely macabre spectacle in the subterranean crypt forms the most grotesquely ghoulish spectacle for tourists to gawp salaciously at; admittedly curiosity got the better of us! (Photo 3 - Ghoulish displays at Kutná Hora Ossuary).

After a night's camp amid autumn leaves at the delightfully straightforward Rovište Autocamp in the middle Vltava valley, we crossed the wide river and continued westwards to Příbram, a mining town which bristled with factory chimneys and merciless traffic. The mines closed in the 1990s and now form the Mining Museum portraying the town's long history of mining. To older Czechs however, Příbram has more spine-chilling associations: between 1951~61, 1000s of political opponents of the Communist regime were detained without trial in forced labour camps and worked or brutalised to death in the notorious uranium mines just south of the town. The Vojna camp near Příbram was built in 1947 for German WW2 POWs, but was taken over by the Communists after the 1948 coup d'état as a hard labour political prison. As the Cold War nuclear arms race intensified, the Soviets imposed a deal on the puppet Czech state to supply uranium ore for the developing Soviet nuclear industry. Political opponents, including democrats, lawyers, clergy, sportsmen as well as convicted criminals, were detained in the forced labour camp to provide slave labour for the Příbram uranium mines. Such was the Soviet-backed Communist regime's ruthless crushing of all opposition that there was a ready supply of prisoner slave-labour during the ten years of operation to replace those who were worked or starved to death in the camp's appalling conditions. Those forced to work in the uranium mines must have been subjected to a constant atmosphere of radioactivity from the ore and radon gas; even if they survived to be released in the 1961 amnesty, they would inevitably have succumbed to cancers from unprotected exposure to radioactivity during their forced detention behind barbed wire.

In 2000, the Czech government preserved the former camp as a permanent memorial to the horrors inflicted during 40 years of Communism and the sufferings of innocents who had dared to oppose the regime. As we drove out from Příbram, we passed the rusting headstocks and spoil heaps of the now closed uranium mines, and in an open clearing among pine woods beyond the village of Lešetice, we reached the camp's gates which are still surmounted by the Czech words Prací ke Svobodé, cynically mimicking the Arbeit macht frei of German concentration camps (Photo 4 - Gate of the Vojna Communist forced labour camp). Twin barbed wire fencing with intervening guard dog patrol-alleyway surrounded the main area of the camp with watch-towers at the corners. It was indeed a eerily chilling feeling entering through those gates. Some of the barrack huts have been preserved with metal framed bunks and only thin army blankets as protection against the raw cold of winter; one hut was laid out as a 'culture centre' ie re-indoctrination hut with portraits of Stalin and Gottwald peering from the wall. We were shown the solitary confinement punishment block with tiny bare concrete cells, bare wooden beds and latrine buckets. In the former camp HQ building, displays graphically documented the Communist regime's systematic suppression of all forms of opposition to enforce its hold on power through terror tactics. The camp was backed by the spoil heaps of the uranium mine where the prisoners were compelled to work, and it was fortunate that the sun shone to relieve the chill gloom of this dreadful place. We have visited some emotionally gruelling places during our travels, but never before have we felt so glad to be driving away. Vojna forced labour camp and uranium mine was something of a perverse place for Paul to spend his birthday. (Photo 5 - Communist Vojna forced labour camp near Příbram). Visit the Memorial's web site: Vojna Memorial to victims of Communism

We headed north to descend to Autocamp Zadní Třeboň Ostrov set on an island in the sluggish River Berounka and accessed by a narrow bridge. Our reason for coming was to coincide our visit to the show-case Castle of Karlštejn with the village's Wine Festival. Karlštejn spreads along a side valley which is dominated by the huge bulk of the Hrad (Castle) which towers in a spectacular and impregnable position high above the village. The Castle had been built in the 14th century by King Charles IV as a safe-box for the Bohemian crown jewels and all the holy relics he had collected on his warring travels. The village street was lined with both the inevitable tacky souvenir sellers and food and drinks stalls; the atmosphere on Wine Festival weekend was jovial with street musicians and locals dressed in medieval costume. As we walked up the increasingly steep village street, the brooding presence of the Castle loomed overhead (Photo 6 - Karlštejn Castle on Wine Festival weekend), and in the courtyard of the Castle, musicians playing medieval music entertained the crowds; instruments included the traditional Bohemian bagpipes called dudy which we had seen in museums in the south. Inevitably the girl skilfully playing these was labelled by us Judy the Dudy (Photo 7 - Traditional Bohemian dudy (bagpipes)). The outrageously expensive entrance fee of 250Kč (Ł8.25) for the Castle would not have been out of place in greed-ridden Britain, and certainly was beyond the income of most Czechs. When you took into account the little there was to see in the Castle's rooms sparsely furnished with crudely mock 19th century Renaissance replicas and utterly uninspiring displays of repro-portraits of Bohemian royalty, the whole experience of a visit to Karlštejn Castle was a fraudulent rip-off and best avoided. Having said that, the Wine Festival with its music and medieval jollity more than made up for the over-promoted, over-expensive tedium of the castle visit.

After our three days in Prague (see record of our visit), we continued westwards to visit the scene of yet another 20th century tragedy, the memorial site of Lidice 18kms from the capital. Heydrich's assassination in May 1942 enraged the German high command who sought revenge on the Czech population. Lidice was a small village of 500 inhabitants with a school and a church; most of the men folk worked in the mines and foundries of nearby Kladno. In the eyes of the vengeful Germans, the flimsiest of evidence was enough to mark Lidice as a community guilty of conspiracy in the Heydrich killing. The village would hit world headlines on 10 June 1942, the day it ceased to exist. That morning, squads of SS arrived at the village. All 173 males over 15 were rounded up and shot on the spot; even 2 in hospital were returned to the village to be shot; the village was burnt to the ground; the 198 women were separated from their children and dispatched to Ravensbrück concentration camp; of the 89 children, a few considered Aryan enough for 'Germanisation' were packed off to German families for adoption, the majority were sent with just the clothes they stood in to camps in Poland for gassing in vans adapted for killing by exhaust fumes. Not content with filming the murder of the men folk and destruction of homes, school and church, the Germans even dug up coffins from the graveyard to destroy the remains of the village dead. This utter crime against humanity reverberated around the world. Hitler wanted Lidice 'wiped from the face of the earth'; instead very soon, the 'Lidice shall live' campaign ensured that the world would indeed remember Lidice as a symbol of resistance. Towns and cities began twinning themselves with Lidice to keep alive the memory of an innocent community destroyed by yet another German act of barbaric atrocity. Thankfully, the Germans' own film of the destruction of Lidice was used as evidence in 1945 war crimes trials, and those guilty of these mass murders were hanged.

Unlike Ležáky which suffered a similar fate a few days later (see record of our visit), Lidice was rebuilt after the war immediately alongside the site of the destroyed village and the few survivors rehoused; arriving here and aware of the tragic history, the modern settlement seemed perversely unexceptional. From the memorial, we looked out across the parkland where the old village once stood. The museum told Lidice's story and documented the destruction of an innocent community, with footage filmed by the Germans as they blew up homes. Photos of murdered Lidice residents lined the walls along with a plaque recording their names (see right); the most moving spectacle however were the reproduced letters sent by Lidice children from the camps appealing to relatives to send more clothes. By the time these letters were received, the children had already been gassed. We walked silently down the hill past the remains of the village where a bronze memorial in the form of a large group of children symbolises those murdered from Lidice  (Photo 8 - Lidice Memorial to children murdered by German atrocity in June 1942). The emotion which the atmosphere of this now empty place created evoked in us an overwhelming feeling of sorrow and anger. Certainly we shall do our part in ensuring that Lidice will never be forgotten. Any nation that turns its creative ability to designing vans especially adapted to gassing children with exhaust fumes forfeits the right to be considered part of the civilised world. The blood of Lidice and the many other communities across Europe destroyed by such atrocities will stain with guilt the German nation for generations to come.

After a pleasant stay in restful autumn sunshine at the wooded setting of Camping Jesenice, with leaves now falling thick and fast and nights becoming chill, we moved north-westwards. As we approached the town of Žatec, the tall wire frames stretching away as far as the eye could see gave immediate clue as to the region' staple crop - hops, hops and yet more hops. Žatec is the home of hop-growing par excellence, to be more precise the Red Saaz hop which supports the Czech brewing industry. This year's crop had long since been harvested leaving the frames standing gaunt and empty, whereas in mid summer, the dense hop plants would present a massive green spectacle twining their way around strings suspended from the frames which stand some 15 feet high. All that remained of this year's plants were a few tendrils clinging to the top wires and heaps of rotting hop plant debris (Photo 9 -
Žatec hopfields for Bohemian Red Saaz hops). The town of Žatec had historically been mainly Czech, but successive waves of German immigrants altered the population balance until the post-WW2 forceful eviction of the Sudetan Germans left the town severely under populated. These days new waves of Roma Gypsy and Vietnamese immigrants make Žatec not a place to hang around in for long. Even so, the central square with its tall-towered radnice (town hall), cluttered plague column, heavily arcaded shops and its small promotional hop garden in one corner is an attractive place (Photo 10 - Žatec central square with plague column).

The road towards Northern Bohemia rose onto a high plateau with broad vistas across fertile arable land and in the distance the hazy outline of the Krušné hory (Ore Mountains) which forms the modern border with Germany and whose name evokes the area's historical exploitation of iron ore and other mineral deposits. A night's camp by the River Ohře near to Kadaň gave further views of the hills (Photo 11 - Ore Mountains backdrop to North Bohemian camp). Below the line of hills lies the North Bohemian brown-coal basin; after 40 years of unrestrained industrialisation during the Communist era, this part of the Ohře valley was until recently even less attractive than the name implies. Stretching 60 kms from Kadaň in the west to Ústí nad Labem in the east, this area of Northern Bohemia is scarred by an almost continuous rash of opencast mines interspersed with prefabricated towns like Chomutov. Most of the country's brown coal (lignite) is mined here from just 10m below the surface leaving huge swathes of land scoured into an indescribably barren waste land, an arid wilderness of opencast pits. 240 square kilometres of countryside has been destroyed by mining since 1950. Not only is the brown coal mined here, but most is also burned here to fuel the rash of lignite-burning powers stations which litter the valley; and brown coal is by far the most pollutant of all fossil fuels. We had previously seen the damage caused to trees by acid rain from former industrial pollution, and at one time dense winter smog filled the valley giving the region's inhabitants a life expectancy seven years less than the European average. Understandably therefore, Northern Bohemia is not usually on the regular tourist route.

Since 1989, successive Czech governments cajoled by EU subsidies, have gone to creditable lengths to clean up this ghastly inheritance from the Communist years. Like it or not, the coming online of the country's second nuclear power station at Temelin (see record of our visit) has enabled older coal-fired stations to be closed, and smoke filters have been installed at the largest power plants. Vast areas of land devastated by former mining have been reclaimed and landscaped with forestry planting. But we had to see for ourselves how bad the impact of such intensive mining was, and how successful government efforts had been to reduce levels of pollutant emissions and recover land scarred by mining and ash tipping: had the ecological disaster of the Communist period been averted, and at what cost in terms of unemployment through scaling down of industry?

Down a back road beyond the Ohře reservoir, we stopped by the huge Tušimice power station to photograph the smoking chimney-stack and steam billowing from the cooling towers, half expecting alarm bells to start ringing and guards to come running; but all we heard was the hum of the generators. The fitting of filters certainly seemed to have reduced the former filthy brown smoke emissions to an innocuous white plume (Photo 12 - Lignite-burning power station at Tušimice). At the nearby Prunéřov generating plant, it was the same story (see right). The map showed huge areas of countryside on both sides of the main west~east Route 13 scoured by opencast mining; giant diggers crawling across great open pits of grey sludge showed that this was still an area of working mines, but clearly much had been done to reclaim derelict land and plant forestry screening. The dereliction was worst around Litvínov where a horrendous industrial complex of oil refineries, chemical works, factories, power plants, smoking chimneys, and network of pipes and towers provided local employment. The impact of mining is more evident at the nearby town of Most which was partly demolished in the 1960s to make way for the ever-expanding lignite extraction. Perhaps more to demonstrate their technical rather than aesthetic prowess, Communist central planning spent vast amounts on physically transporting the huge Gothic church of St Mary on specially designed railway tracks some 841m to a new site where it now stands in gloomy isolation, stranded between mine and motorway (Photo 13 - Google Earth image: open cast mines resulting in the demolition of Most). If ever you go there, ask to see the video documenting the church's move.

Terezin is another name to conjure up chilling memories. Founded originally in the 1780s as a Habsburg fortress defending the border with expansionist Prussia, Terezin housed a garrison town within the huge star-shaped fortress. The Small Fortress just across the Ohře river was converted to a military prison housing political opponents of Habsburg rule, the most famous being the young Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo precipitating WW1; he died of tuberculosis in a Terezin prison cell in 1918. It was during WW2 however that Terezin earned its worldwide notoriety. In 1940 the Terezin Small Fortress was converted into a Gestapo prison for political prisoners, initially members of the Resistance. During the course of WW2, 32,000 prisoners including 5,000 women were interned at Terezin. Most were moved on to concentration camps, but some 2,600 prisoners died here of harsh living conditions, starvation, brutality, torture and typhoid. Then in late 1941, the 3,000 residents of the town of Terezin were turned out and the barracks of main fortress converted into transit ghetto for deported Czech Jews en route to the extermination camps particularly Auschwitz.

The Small Fortress prison has been retained in its WW2 state as a memorial, and our English-speaking guide showed us around the appalling conditions with a thorough and frank commentary. Over the gate into one of the prison compounds, the cynical words Arbeit macht frei greeted new arrivals whose prison clothes were flagged with coloured markers indicating their so-called offence: red triangle for political prisoners, yellow Star of David for Jews (Photo 14 - Terezin WW2 prison: Arbeit macht frei). The stark multi-occupancy cells and solitary confinement punishment block graphically showed the cramped conditions in which prisoners were kept, half-starved, inadequately clothed with little or no heating, with primitive bucket sanitation, and subject to indiscriminate brutality by sadistic guards. When in 1944 the International Red Cross inspected Terezin, the Germans gave the prison a superficial 'beautification'; the IRC inspectors were duly fobbed off and filed a satisfactory report on conditions here. It was however satisfying to hear that the prison commandant, Heinrich Jöckul notorious for his brutality, was eventually tried and hanged in 1946, having been detained in his own cells. Outside the fortress, the memorial gardens of the National Cemetery contained both the individual and mass graves of those who had died at the hands of the Germans at Terezin both in the political prison and the Jewish ghetto (Photo 15 - Memorial cemetery to victims of Terezin prison and ghetto).

Stunned with grief and anger at what we had seen, we walked across to the stark and awesomely intact red-brick walls and moat of the huge Main Fortress. Never in its history put to the test in defending the Habsburg Empire against external attack, the fortress town within the star-shaped walls survived intact. Built in the 18th century around a grid plan of dour barracks to house its garrison, today it is a soulless almost eerie place, its unkempt streets almost empty apart from the few sad-looking residents still living there. In 1941 however, with its vast barracks enclosed by fortress walls and on the main railway line into Germany, Terezin was the perfect site for a transit camp staging post for gathering together Jews deported from the Czech lands and other occupied countries, for onward transportation to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. Within a year, 60,000 Jews were interned in this confined space in appallingly overcrowded and insanitary conditions. By late 1942, the monthly death rate rose to 4,000. By the end of the war, 155,000 Jews, including 10,500 children, had passed through the Terezin ghetto en route for fulfilling the perverted German Endlösung der Judenfrage (Final solution for the Jewish question), the planned genocide of the entire Jewish race. Of these, 35,000 died from disease and starvation in the dreadful living conditions of the overcrowded ghetto, and 83,000 were murdered after onward transportation to the death camps. Of the total number of Terezin victims, just 3,600 survived. In the closing days of the war as the Allies advanced from the west and Red Army from the east, 15,000 more Jewish survivors of the death marches from evacuated concentration camps arrived at Terezin further to exacerbate the overcrowded insanitary conditions. Epidemics of typhus delayed the eventual liberation of the ghetto. With perverted German irony, Terezin was also put to another purpose: false propaganda to hoodwink the international community into disbelieving rumours about the Germans' genocidal intentions. Films were produced presenting Terezin as a self-governing contented community, with Jewish council, local (but worthless money), shops selling belongings confiscated from Jewish inmates, and Jewish cultural events. The deceit worked and IRC visits reported satisfactory conditions in Terezin ghetto.

We walked through the dreary grid of streets to the fortress' central square to find the Muzeum Ghetta, set up in 1991 only after the fall of Communism which had consistently denied the Jewish perspective on Terezin. The museum presented a detailed account in frank and truthful terms of Terezin's tragic story and the dreadful events which took place here between 1941~45. And yet again, German tourists wandered around the chilling displays with seemingly arrogant indifference to what their fathers and grandfathers had committed here. Across the town, the former Magdeburg Barracks, used as the Jewish council's offices, is now set up as a museum documenting the remarkable artistic achievements of the ghetto. One room tried to recreate a semblance of the overcrowded conditions of a women's dormitory (Photo 16 - Inhuman overcrowded conditions at Terezin Jewish ghetto).

Relieved to be driving from Terezin, we headed north following the broad valley of the merged Rivers Vltava and Labe, winding through the gloomy hills to Dečin. This mighty waterway, whose two source rivers we had followed across the country from their origins, would soon pass into eastern Germany to become the Elbe. We diverted into the misty hills to see the geological curiosity of Panská skála, a localised outcrop of basalt columns. The aeons old outcrop had been formed by magma forced upwards and rapidly cooling on the earth's surface to fractionate into pentagonal columns, some 50 feet tall at the highest point (Photo 17 - Outcrop of basalt columns at Panská skála). Our time in the Czech Republic was drawing to its autumnal close, but we had a final two days to enjoy the delights of the Kamenice Gorge in so-called Bohemian Switzerland, České Švýcarsko. Some five kms up into the narrow wooded valley, we reached Menzí Louka, its small campsite open until the end of October. The hotel opposite was a dismal barn of a place but its bar provided welcome if expensive beer on a dark and foully wet evening. The hills are popular with day trippers across the border from Germany, and a regular bus service operates along the valley to Hřensko, making possible a circular route from the campsite along the Kamenice Gorge. A well-constructed path shelves along the bed of the gorge just above the river, with rock walls towering above and sunlight filtering down through the overhanging beech trees lighting the golden autumn colours. Further up the gorge, the river deepened, running silently still through the Quiet Gorge (Tichá soutĕska); boatmen convey visitors in punts along a 1km stretch of murky canyon whose moss-covered rock walls rise sheer on both sides (Photo 18 - Punting along Kamenice Gorge). From a higher landing stage, the path continues passing under rocky overhangs along confines of the gorge, leading across the river and back up the steep valley side to Menzí Louka (Photo 19 - Kamenice Gorge in Čéske Švýcarsko).

We saved the most spectacular feature of the České Švýcarsko for our final day. The Pravčická brána is the largest natural rock bridge in Central Europe, rising 16m high and 27m high above the pine and beech covered hills. The approach path rises steeply through dark woods, zigzagging around huge weathered outcrops of sandstone rock which towered above. The natural rock bridge was formed by the erosion of a weakness in such a projecting rib of sandstone. The path clambers precariously onto the crest of a neighbouring spur to give a superb vantage point for viewing the rock bridge (Photo 20 - Pravčická brána natural rock bridge). So often our trips seem to peter out with an anticlimactic ending and a poor campsite. Not so this trip: two excellent days walking in Bohemian Switzerland's exciting terrain, with beautiful autumn weather and a worthy last campsite were an impressive climax. Returning to the valley, we stowed our boots, and at 3-00pm on the day of the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism, we crossed the undistinguished border into what until then had been East Germany; it felt as if we were sneaking out of Czech Republic's back door to begin our journey home.

The Czech Republic has been a thoroughly worthwhile trip with such a store of learning particularly about the country's hard-won struggles both to win and to maintain its sovereignty. The last two weeks of our visit happened to include places with bitter associations for the Czechs of 20th century events which tragically and prematurely brought to an end the optimism of independent Czechoslovakia's First Republic founded in 1918: first the German occupation of 1939 and then 40 years of bitter Communist repression. Our final days in the country coincided with the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution which finally brought an end to Communist dictatorship and re-secured sovereignty for the Czechs. The country now faces another threat potentially undermining its sovereignty, this time from the EU. President Václav Klaus, under pressure to bow to the Beast of Brussels, was compelled to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon; he had been quoted as saying "I do not consider the Lisbon Treaty to be a good thing for Europe, for the freedom of Europe, or for the Czech Republic" doubtless having in mind the many Czechs who have suffered and died to secure Czech independence.  See BBC News report of the dilemma now facing Czech Present Klaus

As further encouragement to fellow travellers to visit the Czech Republic, we shall be publishing the postscript edition in a couple of weeks with our now customary Review of Czech Campsites and Travel Tips, sharing our hard-won experiences of the last 10 weeks.
 

   Sheila and Paul

   Published: 4 November 2009   

Postscript edition with Czech Campsites Review and Travel Tips to be published in 2 weeks

 

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Music this week: Antonín Dvořák
Slavonic Dance No 10

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