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doors to other worlds
Monthly Archives: July 2012
east
On Saturday night, Lublin is rocking – more even than Krakow. The old town – a few cobbled streets and a medieval square – is jammed with people partying out loud in sweltering heat. A punk band blasts cacophony from … Continue reading
Posted in road
Tagged Byzantium, central Europe, church, holocaust, Lublin, Nazis, Poland, World War II, Zamość
6 Comments
This Way for The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
Tadeusz Borowski, who wrote these stories, lived through Auschwitz somehow, and left sharply told tales of hell behind. There is nothing to say about them by way of commentary; they just need to be read. But his guilt (one has … Continue reading
Posted in bleakdom: don't blink, read
Tagged Auschwitz, book review, holocaust, Ladies and Gentlemen, Nazis, Poland, Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for The Gas
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earth do not cover their blood
From the moment the bus stops, Auschwitz and Birkenau, 67 and a half years to the day after their liberation, are heaving with guided tour groups in a Babel of languages. The story goes on and on: three-and-a-half almost relentless … Continue reading
Kraków
Kraków is a fine, bustling city with bags of self-confidence and plenty to be proud about. Here are the tombs of the Polish kings – something like the tombs of the Kings of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings. … Continue reading
Posted in road
Tagged central Europe, church, concert, holocaust, Judaism, Kraków, Poland, synagogue
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Love and Garbage
A novel by the Czech writer Ivan Klima, written in the early 1980s: mostly garbage, actually. He’s very good on garbage: he describes well the environmental pollution of Prague and its environs by the communist regime, and how they also … Continue reading
Posted in read
Tagged book review, Czech Republic, Ivan Klima, Love and Garbage, Prague, Soviet empire
4 Comments
I Served The King Of England
This novel by the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, written in 1971, consists of a series of impossible anecdotes strung around the life of the narrator, a waiter in Bohemia during the years around the Second World War. At first it’s … Continue reading
Posted in read
Tagged Bohumil Hrabal, book review, central Europe, Czech Republic, I Served The King Of England, Nazis, Soviet empire
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24 hours in Silesia
The small train from the Czech Republic came rattling through cool Sudeten mountain forests of silver birch into Poland, and then descended to the plains. When I was at school back in the 1970s I had a mental picture of … Continue reading
Posted in road
Tagged central Europe, Czech Republic, Europe rail, Germany, Poland, Silesia, Soviet empire, World War II, Wrocław
1 Comment
48 hours in Moravia
On into Moravia, the other half of the Czech lands. Long vistas of rolling land, field and heath and forests that are just as cool and dense and lush, if a little more coniferous than in Bohemia. At a small … Continue reading
Posted in road
Tagged Brno, central Europe, Czech Republic, death, Moravia, Olomouc, Roman Empire, Soviet empire, Telč
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lagerland
Plzeň is ground zero of the global lager explosion – it was invented here in the 1830s (ever wondered what the Ur in Pilsner Urquell stood for?) So much to answer for… There’s a museum dedicated to General George S. … Continue reading
Posted in road
Tagged central Europe, church, Czech Republic, Egon Schiele, Plzeň, Soviet empire, synagogue, World War II, České Budějovice, Český Krumlov
5 Comments
Prague: the Jewish quarter
It only takes so long looking at the pretty face of central Europe before you are bound to end up staring at the screaming, searing wound gouged across it: the treatment of the Jews. It was bad enough before the … Continue reading
Posted in bleakdom: don't blink, road
Tagged central Europe, Czech Republic, Germany, holocaust, Judaism, Nazis, Prague, synagogue
2 Comments