As we left Prague this morning, we were met by a friend of Mr. Barmore’s, Raquel Orensztajn, who came in from Israel to bring us to a special project she has been working on in Nymburk, Czech Republic. We are traveling there today on our way to Olomouc.

First, some background to the connection between Raquel and Nymburk. A few years ago Raquel came across a poem in I Never Saw Another Butterfly which is a book first published in 1959 and later published in English by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in the 1990’s. This book consists of poetry and art by children who were in Theresienstadt. Raquel came across a poem entitled Fear by Eva Pickova. Fear, a poem by 12-year old Eva Pickova, a prisoner in the Theresienstadt Ghetto. Eva was born in May of 1929 in Nymburk, Czechoslovakia. With her family, she was deported in April 1942 to Terezin. After a year and a half, in December 1943, she was deported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered. Raquel decided to research the fate of Eva and in doing so she found a school in Nymburk that has been researching the story of Eva. She reached out to the teacher at Gymnasium Nymburk, Lucie Prokešová, and they began to work together along with the Modern History Club which Lucie is the advisor for at Gymnasium Nymburk.

As we arrived in Nymburk, a beautiful picturesque town 50 minutes from Prague, we made our way to the local high school, Gymnasium Nymburk. There we met Lucie Prokešová and a group of French high school students she has been hosting for the week along with their French teachers. The French teachers and students were from Dijon in the Burgundy region of France. We spent the morning walking through Nymburk and learning about the  Stolpersteine project the Nymburk Modern History Club students have been researching and implementing in their town. Stolpersteine, also known as “stumbling stones” are gold plaques embedded in sidewalks throughout cities and towns in Europe which commemorate the lives of Jews who had once lived in Europe. We had seen these plaques in Berlin and Prague. Often a Stolpersteine plaque is installed by surviving family members. In the case of Nymburk, Lucie Prokešová and her students have been researching the history of the Jews in their town and raising funds to install these plaques where local Jews had once lived. These students do extensive research with the help of Raquel. As we walked through the town with the students, we stopped at places they have installed Stolpersteine and these students spoke in English to us about the family while showing some historic images they have found that are associated with the story. We also stopped at the site of the former synagogue which is now a storage facility. The property is owned by the Jewish Community of the Czech Republic and there is a marker there, but the once vibrant and beautiful synagogue is lost to time.

The Stolpersteine project ties in with the efforts of Raquel and Lucie by the research they have done collective to uncover the story of Eva Pickova. As the students brought us to the place where Eva had lived, they talked about the trajectory of her story and we watched a short documentary they created describing their research and Eva’s story. You can watch the film here on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plk3XLjLJ-Q

Walking the streets of this beautiful picturesque town, wondering and thinking about the history that is visible today and so much that is not visible, reminded us of the voids we keep encountering on this trip – the voids of the past that people like Raquel Orensztajn, Lucie Prokešová and the students continue to unearth and bring to light the richness of Jewish life and culture that once existed and thrived in these tiny towns and villages we continue to encounter.

Once we arrived in to Olomouc we headed to our hotel, checked in and then went to the Jewish Community of Olomouc. Our long time friend, Petr Papousek, who is head of this Jewish community as well as the President of the Federation of Czech Communities throughout the Czech Republic. It was here, with Petr’s grandfather, survivor Milos Dobry that our partnership with Trsice began. Today, Petr gave the students a brief history of Jewish life in the Czech Republic and Olomouc noting that there are approximately 3,000 Jews in the entire Czech Republic and 140 here in Olomouc – the third largest community. In all of the Czech Republic there are 340 survivors, most now were hidden children. There is one survivor in Olomouc who is 103 years old and a very active member of the community. There are 20 survivors in Olomouc.

Petr gave the students an opportunity to see the torah scroll that was recently returned to Olomouc from 1888. This was in the hands of a trust that rescued scrolls during the Holocaust and Petr was able to have the scroll repaired and returned to its rightful home.

Thanks to Petr our students learned what it truly means to carry the legacy of his grandparents into 2024 and beyond.

We ended the day by hosting a dinner for our Trsice friends at the Jezdecký areál Hostinúv Dúl Tršice [Hotel Horse Riding] that we call the Horse Farm where we had a wonderful dinner with Pavel Kováček (the mayor of Trsice), Mrs. Ohera, her sister, Milan Mahdal and the Czech Scout leader Jiri Dvorak along with several of the Boy and Girls Scouts.