Prague Journal

Saturday, May 28, 2005.

Marketa planned an excursion for us today, so Howard rented a car and the four of us headed west. Our first top was Kouřim, an ancient town situated exactly at the intersection of the 50th parallel and the 15th meridian, 40 km east of Prague on the route to Kutna Hora, the famous Silver Mining Town. The Old Kouřim settlement dates from the 3rd century, and gained importance in the 9th century at the time of Slav settlements when the settlement of the powerful Zlič tribe was a center of power and trade, which competed for a privileged position with Prague. The town was prosperous under King Wenceslas I from the middle of the 13th century until the Hussite revolution, which lasted until 1620. The town then suffered a decline from which it never recovered, although preserved traces of its former significance remain. We walked through the small town square, to the Church of St. Stephan, one of the most valuable early-Gothic buildings in Central Europe. The church was open, and we were fortunate to find a friendly young docent who was quite knowledgeable about the history and architecture of the church, a rare combination of Gothic and neo-Gothic architecture and design. The Renaissance-style belfry still has two of the original five bells, curiously suspended with their clappers up. The small Chapel of Virgin Mary Helping was built in 1727 by J.B. Santini, the most famous Baroque architect of central Europe. The chapel has five sides as a symbol of five monks who were burnt to death by the Hussites.
Most of the morning was spent walking along the town fortification, which was built from the 13th -16th centuries. Kouřim boasts some of the best preserved fortifications of medieval Czech towns. They surrounded the historical heart of the town, a full 1240 meters in length. A part of the fortifications is the “Prague Gate,” which is the town’s only remaining entrance gate.
Outside Kouřim, the way led through sylvan forests, by a bucolic farmyard, and then along a musical creek. Because the day was quite hot, we turned back short of our objective, the town of Zasmuky, and drove there instead after grabbing a bite to eat in Kouřim. In 1694 Zasmuky, was the head of the family of Count Adolph Vratislav Sternberg, the Highest Burgrve in the Kingdom of Bohemia. The Sternbergs played a role in both the cultural and political history of Bohemia. Legend has it that Jaroslav of Sternberg led the defense of the town of Olomouc against the Tartar Khan Batu, Chingiz-Khan’s son in 1241 and thus stopped the invasion of all of Europe by the Tartar horde. Twelve years later, in 1253, Zdeslav of Sternberg led the victorious battle against the Hungarian Kumans, and the King awarded him with large territories in Moravia. In the 14th century, the Sternbergs became related by marriage to the Luxembourgs. Albert of Sternberg was adviser as well as friend to Emperor Charles the IV, who was a Luxembourg. Albert Sternberg, a cleric, established several monasteries in Bohemia and eventually became Archbishop of Magdeburg, the Primate of all of Germany. In the 15th century, Zdenek of Sternberg led the Catholics in the religious wars against the Hussite King Jiři of Poděbrad, even though his sister, Kunhuta Sternberg, was the first wife of Jiři of Poděbrad. Today, the castle and surrounding buildings at Zasmuky are in disrepair, apparently undergoing renovations. We drove to Kolín, the birthplace of many significant personalities in the fields of culture, politics, economics, and Jewish life. Its Jewish community is one of the oldest in the country. A number of Jews were living here in the fourteenth century, and they had their own synagogue. A stone inscription from a former synagogue, preserved in the present synagogue, bears the date 1642. When King Ferdinand I. expelled the Jews from Bohemia in 1541, the Jews of Kolín went with their movable goods to Poland. At Braunau the emigrants encountered thieves, who robbed them of 20,000 Bohemian schock. In 1551 the Bohemian Jews were permitted to return; but the Jews of Kolín could find no rest in their city. For unknown reasons, King Ferdinand granted them safe-conduct in 1557, enabling them to remain for one year in the country to collect their debts, after which period they were to leave again. Their affairs delayed them, however, and they did not leave the city until 1561. After Ferdinand’s death in 1564, his successor, Maximilian II, permitted the Jews to return to Kolín; but the wealthiest among them did not avail themselves of the permission. In 1618 the Jewish community of Kolín was, next to that of Prague, the largest in Bohemia. It had to pay heavy taxes into the royal treasury; in 1618 the sum amounted to 18,000 thalers, or 47 thalers per head. In 1603 the municipal council forbade the Jews to appear on Sundays and on other Christian holidays in those parts of the city inhabited by Christians; it prohibited them from keeping dogs; and forbade also Jewish butchers to sell meat to Christians. In 1611 a special prison was built in the Jews’ street for the Jews, at their request and at their expense; it has only recently been demolished, after having served as a dwelling for poor families for more than one hundred years. No Jew was permitted to own any real estate except his house, or more than one horse. Jews were forbidden also to engage in those trades or lines of business in which their Christian fellow citizens were engaged; they were obliged, therefore, to establish connections with foreign houses. The municipal council, which was intent upon isolating the Jews from the Christian population, forbade the latter to enter the service of the Jews; even washerwomen were not allowed to do laundry-work for them. As the Jews were accused of having brought the plague into the city on returning from their business trips, they were not permitted to remain outside of their own street for any length of time, nor to draw water with their vessels from the Christians’ wells. During this appearance of the plague (1613-14) the municipal council had both entrances to the Jews’ street walled up.
In December 1621, the knight Jan Vazlav Grizl of Grizlov was made captain of the imperial estate of Kolín and Bieberitz. He permitted the Jews to engage in those trades and lines of business which had hitherto been open only to Christians; and on several occasions he showed them favor. When an epidemic of dysentery appeared in Kolín in 1660, Rabbi Borges and his son Schaje (Isaiah) were accused of having killed a pig which had escaped from the house of the widow Sperlink into the Jews’ street, and of having thrown the same into the communal well, thereby poisoning the water. Both fled from the city.
In 1942, 2202 people were deported to Terezin from Kolín and its vicinity in 1942 and only about 105 survived the Nazi occupation. It’s not clear that there are any Jews living in Kolín now. We were particularly interested in seeing the remains of the Jewish ghetto, part of which has survived, and the Kolín synagogue, which is the second oldest in the Czech Republic, originally built around 1642. This synagogue, whose entrance is inside a school (so we could not go in today) functioned until 1955. Around that time, its Torahs were send to the different Jewish communities all over the world. Only the early baroque Aron ha kodesh, acquired at the expense of the Viennese financier Samuel Oppenheimer, uncle of David Oppenheimer, the provincial rabbi in Bohemia, remains in its original location. The inscription in the frieze reads “This is a gift from the prince and high official Samuel Oppenheimer at the King’s Court and in the capital city.” This title of prince, however, does not imply noble status but expresses the importance of the offerer in the eyes of the Kolín Jewish community. The whole complex of the Kolín synagogue and the former Jewish school underwent extensive reconstruction work at the end of the 1990s and at the present time it is partially used for cultural purposes. The chandelier and a part of the furnishing are now in Denver at Temple Emmanuel, so we had heard of Kolín several years ago.
Modern Kolín is an industrial city, a river port on the Elbe (Labe) River, known for its metal and chemical industries. The city also has a petroleum refinery and a hydroelectric station. Earlier this year Kolín opened a Toyota-Peugeot-Citroën automobile factory at the northern edge of the town, which employs about 3000 people. Its capacity is 300,000 cars a year. Kolín was founded by king Wenceslas I in the 13th century, under the name Colonia nova (New Colony). Between 1475 and 1488, Hynek z Poděbrad, a Renaissance writer and son of King Jiři (George) of Poděbrady, lived in Kolín Castle. Jiří z Poděbrad, King of Bohemia (1458-1471), was the first king in Europe to renounce the Catholic faith when he adopted the religion of Jan Hus. Kolín’s major growth occurred after the construction of the Vienna-Prague railway in the 19th century.
We spent our time near the city center, which is surrounded by Gothic and Renaissance buildings, including a splendid town hall. The 13th-century Church of St. Bartholomew, noted for its Gothic choir, was designed by the famous Peter Parler, one of the builders of St. Vitas Cathedral at Prague Castle. While the sign on the church said that there were services at 6pm, the church was closed and empty. Marketa went to a service at the Roman-Catholic church of St. Johan Baptist, while Howard and Rick and I explored the Jewish sites. We were treated to an outdoor music festival just down the street from the Church of St. Bartholomew and had fun walking through the city streets listening to the music. I especially enjoyed the fact that it was sunny and warm—too warm for most sensibilities—and the sun was still shining after 9pm when we got back to Prague.

posted by JWinn @ 9:58 PM