Czech/American marriages

I heard a funny story from an American woman married to a Czech.  I asked her if she would recommend marriage to a Czech man.  "No actually, I recommend the other way around," she intimated with a laugh.  "Czech women are raised to do everything domestically and expect nothing from a man around the house.  He gets away with doing less than he would have to do married to an American." So when a Czech woman marries an American it's a very peaceful marriage because both people are getting more than they expected.  She continued, "but when a Czech man marries an American woman and he doesn't do anything and she expects the same sort of help an American man would give, it's not at all peaceful."

There you have it.  Choose accordingly!

The Need for Mythic Narrative

Scratch any American and you'll find someone in love with the mythic narrative of his or her own country.  That's why I could never understand George Bush's invasion of Iraq.  He was depriving the Iraqi people of the opportunity to create their own mythic narrative to cherish as we cherish ours.

That love and nostalgia of one's story is a deep human need.  I read this New York Times story about an underappreciated photographer of Eastern European Jewish life pre-WWII with the full knowledge that I have this same need as much as anyone for romanticized mythic narrative about my own people.   

Scholar Maya Benton studied the photos which represented her parent's past and wanted to know more.  She began to look into the photographic narrative of Roman Vishniac, known for his pious poverty-stricken pictures of Eastern European Jewish life taken pre-WWII and she wondered at the specificity of his photographic focus.  As she researched, she discovered that Vishniac's view of shtetl life was too narrow and much of his best work was unpublished because it didn't fit the requirements of the mythic narrative being constructed.

Who knows what romantic notions I hold about the mythic narrative of my own country that may be selective rememberings?  But as Ms. Benton says, "the fuller picture is so much more interesting." She continues, "Even the selection of what Vishniac chose to publish now seems, broadly, like a distortion. “It’s as if we took pictures of homeless people in New York and then the city fell into the sea, and 50 years from now people looked at those photos and thought, That’s what New York was.”  Click on my title to read the whole article and to see a selection of Mr. Vishniac's photography of Eastern European Jewish life.

Track Trip To Kutna Hora

It was February of last year, and my friend Nhan needed a break - a road trip out of town.  Only this was the Czech Republic and why take a road when you can take a train on the densest railway network in all of Europe?  We threw around ideas of where would be a good place to go.  Wanting to save places that would look best in Spring and Summer, I suggested Kutna Hora cause going to see a pile of bones is the same in February or July.  No amount of spring flowers will change the view.

We got into our train compartment and marveled at what a relaxing way this was to travel.  Nhan originally hails from Orlando. He remarked how wonderful it would be to have a train like this for day trips from the city to the beach.  Instead, after a day of unwinding, a Florida beachgoer has to experience the stress of the traffic back into town. We would get to chat the whole way to Kutna Hora with nary a thought about traffic, gas tanks, or directions. The cost round-trip was less than $5 for each person.

Being the dear friends they are, Gulnara and Nhan greeted me with a box of chocolates, even though I had lost, yes, lost the Christmas present they gave me before I even opened it.  Did I say they were dear friends? Simply the best.

Gulnara and me in the deserted Square at Kutna Hora

It was one c-o-l-d day the day we decided to go.  I think we were three of 12 tourists in the whole town. We definitely did not have to fight off the crowds to go visit what was our first UNESCO Heritage site that we visited simply because it was a UNESCO Heritage site.  We decided to save the Bone Church, the reason everyone comes to Kutna Hora, for the end of the day.

T

The Alchemist's Shop

Immediately we spotted a beautiful building with tourist information and a purported alchemist's shop.  I would like to say we were all filled with a burning desire to learn how to turn ordinary objects into gold, but mostly we were just freezing our tushes off and needed someplace, anyplace, with heat!

 Investigating Alchemy

There were all sorts of mysterious mad scientist apparatus and giant bellows and a tunnel that lead who knows where.  All of it food for the imagination of a young person raised on tales of King Midas. But what Kutna Hora is known for besides the Bone Church, is the real wealth, not pretend wealth that came out of this town.

Kutna Hora was the center of a mining operation that created coinage that was traded so widely you could call it unintentional medieval Euros. We began walking toward the famous Church of St. Barbara's (named after the patron saint of miners and anyone working with explosives) that had been built with all of this fantastic wealth that Kutna Hora produced.

The Walkway to St. Barbara's

The walkway to St. Barbara's was so romantic -- or it would have been if it wasn't 0 degrees centigrade.  Along the way were numerous statues of  saints and people in various states of torment, along with the beautiful paving and stonework that Czechs do so well.

Over the stone fence to the left, there was a magnificent view of Kutna Hora, the town, and the surrounding countryside. There are around 21,000 people in Kutna Hora today but at one time Kutna Hora rivaled Prague for economic dominance of Bohemia. The mines have played out, however, a new source of wealth has been found: growing tobacco for Phillip Morris.

 Gulnara and Nhan

with St. Josef's Church

in the background

As we walked toward St. Barbara's Church, I was fascinated by the competing church St. Josef's, easily seen from this walk way and the spectacular St. Barbara's.  I marveled at what politics would motivate the building of a smaller, less ornate church when there's a perfectly magnificent church already started in town in the 1300s.  Maybe it's like American churches that divide and divide into smaller and smaller congregations over minute theological questions, I don't know. Or maybe the townspeople viewed St. Barbara's as a money pit. It didn't get finished until 1905.  It was fun to think about.

 Approaching the flying buttresses

of St. Barbara's Church

I ask you gentle readers, especially my male readers, you know what flying buttresses are as an architectural detail, don't you? Simply because it's so much fun to say "flying buttresses," right? Can you say the same for knowing what crenelated stoneworks are? Sounds like a detail on a petticoat, doesn't it? I was just wondering if my theory that you know what flying buttresses are proves correct.  The inner 8-year-old in all of us loves to say "flying buttresses!"

 One of many beautiful baroque altars

and stained glass windows within the church

The beautiful Gothic

arches and ceiling

within the Church

After thoroughly exploring the unheated church we headed back toward the center for a long leisurely lunch of Czech specialties, mead and beer.  There were more interesting sites along the way to our next stop.

For example, they don't make

water towers like this back home.

 Two wild and crazy Czechs

from back in the day.

Many European communities

have one of these:

a Plague Column

to commemorate and give thanks for the end

of the Bubonic Plague's rampage.

We were all excited when we saw this truck
because we thought we were going to get to say hi
to American military overseas.
It was three Czechs moving carpet.

The Italian Court
 

Our next stop was the Italian court, a former royal residence and mint. We took a tour that showcased some of the coins and manufacturing operations of those times.  I remember being impressed with medieval loss prevention techniques.  Nobody was sneaking home with any coin molds in their lunch pail.

The keys our guide used to enter

the doors at the Italian Court.

Good thing she had them.

 She was so nervous

giving her first tour in English

she accidentally locked up a few tourists

on our tour.

Luckily Gulnara asked,

"Hey, where did the Germans go?"

Otherwise they might still
be locked up in the tower.

The drop-dead gorgeous chapel

in the Italian Court.

 Every wall was achingly beautiful.

Oh, the Bone Church.

We ran out of time. Never saw it.

Ice cream and good conversation

got in the way. 

I hope I come back this way again.

I'll do the Bone Church and the Silver Mines

...next time.

You might enjoy these other train-related posts:

Track Trip to Karlstejn

How Czech Government Delighted Me as a Consumer

"How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed"

Imagine living in a country where your political system did not consider your needs as a woman and mother important enough to provide for. It's easy enough in the West to bemoan the superficiality of a consumer culture, but how long could you last, Western ladies, in a country that had no consumer culture at all?  Imagine a life without cosmetics, any sort of feminine hygiene products, where fruit was available only sporadically if at all, and where recycling was not about ecology but about the complete lack of any goods to replace worn-out items.

"How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed," a book by Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulic is a wonderful description of what it was to live as a woman trying to create a normal life under a totalitarian regime. Encouraged by her feminist friends in the West, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, Ms. Drakulic describes what it was like for women in the first few years after all of the regimes fell.  While pundits described grand political theories about what just happened after the Wall fell and what was continuing to happen, Drakulic was among the first authors writing about how these regimes affected ordinary women.

This book is a quick and wonderful read that shows communism didn't necessarily end when the Wall came down.  It will take future generations for all of that communism to leave the mind. I don't think any other writer has helped me see how communism breeds incredibly reactionary outlooks in people since making a mistake could be so well...fatal...plus job #1 was to survive it until the next day.

You might enjoy my post about Slavenka Drakulic's other book:

In Prague, you can enjoy reading "Cafe Europa" at the Cafe Europa

Sounds like a Healthy Debate About Patriotism in Slovakia

  
Slovak Flag

The New York Times recently chronicled a healthy debate about patriotism that is going on in Slovakia.  Politicians are playing to populism asking all schools to display the flag and play the national anthem every morning.  This is all taking place in advance of upcoming elections.  Critics, including Martin Simecka, (son of Milan Simecka, who would be so proud of his son's public intellectual role) say the efforts aren't inclusive of ethnic minorities and may glorify the past with uncomfortable truths glossed over. Click on my title to read the article.

'Soul Of A Citizen': Barack Obama and Vaclav Havel, And When Small Steps Yield Unexpected Fruit

Recently I saw the Czech movie "Twenty-One Spokespersons of Charter '77." What a great film for showcasing the singular courage individuals had to possess to work for change at a time no one thought change was possible.  In the film, Vaclav Havel said that Western reporters would always come and interview him and then tell him that what he was trying to do was impossible.  You are only risking your life, they intimated.  The balance in power is too great.

A grateful Czech nation is glad he ignored that advice.  He did not work alone to create change.  As more and more Czechs not only didn't believe in the totalitarian system, but grew willing to show their lack of belief,  Charter 77 evolved from dissident protest group to celebrated speakers of truth to power.  I was struck by one of the spokeslady's comments in the film.  As she watched her fellow citizens congregate in Wenceslas Square to protest, she went home.  She said "her work was done and she was no longer needed."  Aren't you grateful for courageous citizens like that?

A recent essay on the Huffington Post celebrates these people who take small steps to yield unforseen fruits.  What steps are you comfortable taking to change your society?  Are you one of the early canaries who sing in the coal mine or are you more comfortable helping later when a movement picks up steam?

Has one person's political risk-taking and actions ever inspired you? Who was it? What did they do? How did they open your mind?

Have you ever felt passionately about an issue yet kept quiet?  How come? What kept you from expressing how you felt?

Two issues that inspired me to activism in my own country were protesting the Iraq War to my elected officials, including my-then United States Senator Barack Obama. What was depressing about my letters is I read them five years after I wrote them early in the war and nothing in the situation had changed.  I could have sent them again and just changed the date.  I'm grateful that my Senator was finally elected to the Presidency to change all that and he has.

The other issue that inspired me to activism was our recent health care debates in America.  It took zero courage on my part to call my elected officials over and over and over again.  It merely took time.  But when the President of the United States said afterwards "thank you" to everyone who ever made a call or worked for change on health care in America, I found it deeply meaningful.

Click on my title to read the essay on Paul Loeb's book "Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in Challenging Times." 

Forgotten Transports of Czech Jews

Deported Czech Jews

working as conscripted laborers

in Estonia

I haven't yet been to Terezin, the concentration camp that is frequently visited by Prague tourists as a day trip out of the city.  If there is one experience that tells the story of Czech Jews, visiting Terezin and seeing it for oneself has been the single event that most people interested in Czech history have experienced.

Now a new and intensively-researched film documents the little-known stories of what happened to Czech Jews during the Holocaust.  Filmmaker Lukas Pribyl, is a project obviously close to his heart due to his family's history, has culled photos from survivors and relatives of both sides of the story to create a photographic narrative of what happened for us to see almost as if we were there.

To read more about his new film, click on my title to access the story in the New York Times. Does anyone know if it's been shown in Prague yet?  Have you seen it?