Orlicke Hory: The final installment

Sunday: Home and Away

Sunday morning, our tummies full of ham and eggs, we set off for home. But on the way we made a few stops to see what local culture could offer us. Because of Karel Polacek, we were inspired to dig a bit deep into the Jewish history of the area. We started in Rychnov at the Karel Polacek Memorial. This building had once been the synagogue of a small but thriving Jewish community. About forty men, women and children were removed from their homes and sent to concentration camps with millions of others during the Nazi occupation and the Jewish community that had lived in Rychnov for around 400 years "ceased to exist" as the memorial states.

How does a culture and a community cease to exit? It's hard to imagine a place like this, when I grew up so close to my hometown's Jewish community. Of course, I'd studied WW2 and I was as mortified and horrified as any rational human is by the facts. But growing up I was surrounded by a very local vibrant Jewish community with a synagogue across the street from my high school. To be in a place where that community "ceased to exist" makes racism and nationalism and fear and ethnocentrism things not of the past, but demons we need to conquer today as well because they are very very real and relevant.

A short drive and we found ourselves in Dobruška (www.mestodobruska.cz), birthplace to František Kupka and F. L. Věk. (Don't worry, if you aren't Czech then I doubt you've heard of them. I never had until my history lesson from H!) Like dozens of small Czech towns, it was centered around a cute little square with cookie-cutter buildings and a clock tower that we climbed our way up to get the bird's eye view.

The last stop on the Orlicke Hory tour was Třebechovice. Blink and you'll miss Třebechovice. The claim to fame is the Nativity Museum where the prize possession is a 7 meter long, hand-crafted wooden Nativity from the beginning of last century. It is a sight to behold. Every crevis and corner revealed another scene. WOW sums up anything I could write about it.

And then we drove home and went to bed early, exhausted from all the mountain air, walking, good beer and Czech-ness of Orlicke Hory.