• 25Aug

  Lidice Memorial

  Lidice No Comments

  

  It was a cold, dark and windy day, adding to the sadness that this place brings. When I arrived at the memorial grounds in the village of Lidice, I was ill prepared for what I found. Its like a feeling of sadness grips the place, and only silence was fitting.

  Lidice was a Czech village that was obliterated by the Nazis on June 10, 1942.

  Almost 350 residents were murdered. First, 173 men of the village were stood up and shot in front of some mattresses that had been set up against the wall of a barn. Much of that brutality was even filmed by the Nazis and can be seen at the Lidice memorial museum.

  82 children were taken to a concentration camp in Poland for exterminated. Their mothers were taken to another camp and were also killed.

  The order to kill its inhabitants was in retaliation for the assassination of a top Nazi official in Prague, Reinherd Heydrich, who was mortally wounded in an attack by Czech parachutists on May 27, 1942.

  I knew of the place, but like the concentration camp at Terezin, I had never bothered to visit, thinking that it would be too much of a downer, I guess. It was a very sad place to visit. Toys and stuffed animals are left there in memory of the children.

  

   

   

• 22Aug

  Devil’s Bible

  Devil's Bible No Comments

  

  One of the most precious books of the world and also the largest manuscript in the Medieval times, Codex gigas, is in Prague. The book is often called the Devil’s Bible because of a large drawing of a devil on the inside.

  The book was written at the turn of the 12th and 13th century in Benedictine monastery of Podlazice near Chrudim. It is 1 meter long and 50 centimeters wide and it weights 75 kilograms. The Swedish took it as war booty, now it is kept in Swedish Royal Library.

  The National Library in Prague will borrow the book in autumn for about 3 months. The Devil’s Bible has been only lent to Metropolitan Museum in New York City and Berlin’s library so far. The National Library of the Czech Republic will digitize the manuscript so that everybody can study it.

  According to a legend, which gave the book its nickname, a monk, after having committed a serious sin, was supposed to be walled up alive. He promised to write the largest book ever in one day to avoid the punishment. He asked a devil for help and the book was written. To show his gratitude he draw the devil on page 290 on the manuscript.

  This I will go to see, rather creepy it is, and one heck of a large book….

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