the ghosts of Moravia

We just returned from a weekend away in Moravia, the eastern region of the Czech Republic. Among the yellowing trees and damp grassy hills I forgot all about the financial crisis, upcoming elections, and Bush striking down the Posse Comitatus and deploying troops domestically. The concerns of the day gave way to the expanse of freshly harvested fields and story-filled silence of the centuries-old stone walls we brushed against on our trip.

My grandmother came along and we stayed in an old mill in a secluded valley on the shore of the Jihlava river.

The building was a sizable old farm house with large barns and horse stables. In front there was a playground perfect for Jonah, and just beyond the playground, horses grazing under apple trees all day.

One day the father of the owner even brought his goat to chew on the nettles next to the playground. Jonah and I fed and pet it. I managed to get the goat involved in a lengthy bleating exchange -- a conversation, if you will, between woman and beast, carried out back and forth, clear across the meadow.

This magical valley was located only a five minute drive from the historical town of Třebíč, a place with one of the best-preserved Jewish quarters in Europe. We spent a morning and an evening walking around the old Jewish neighborhood, much of it dating back to the 1500s and beyond.

Above the town lies a five-hundred-year-old cemetery which we also visited to pay our respects to the community which no longer exists in this town. Walking down the cobble stone lanes in the town made me uneasy deep inside my core, unsettled by the tragedy of it: everyone gone, the neighborhood half-empty, half-gentrified.

On Saturday we made a trip north to the Pernštejn castle, towering discretely over forested hills and narrow valleys; a castle which dates back to the 1200's, but whose style is predominantly gothic. This time we toured the place, getting a glimpse of what life may have been like in the centuries past.

One ghost story we were told haunted us. A servant who lived in the castle always skipped church service, primping in front of a mirror instead. The priest grew so angry he cursed her for it. When he did, the earth opened and swallowed the girl whole. She continued to visit the castle as a ghost, it is said. From the day she disappeared into the ground, the mirror, still hanging on the wall in one of the rooms, has been said to make every woman who looks in it turn ugly. The women in our group grew nervous, bowing their heads and looking at the ground as we passed the mirror, believing themselves too beautiful to stand up to the curse.

Another ghost used to appear at the castle, which the Swedes attacked during the Thirty Year War in the 17th century. The ghost was a woman who predicted good or bad things depending on the color of the gloves she wore. White meant good and black bad.

Jonah continued to ask about the ghosts, trying to understand that they were gone now. Finally he settled, albeit reluctantly, on the idea that the ghosts went underground and have not been seen since.








More pics here (scroll all the way down and on the next page).