But especially in the territory of old Karviná (Karvinná), which no longer exists today, they can grope. Apart from the church of St. Peter of Alcantara, which gave the title its name, and the cemetery on the other side of the four-lane road towards Ostrava, there was nothing left of the wider center of the former city of 20,000 due to mining.
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On the roads around which the forest grew from overgrown trees and the footpaths leading across the meadow, the city bustle can only be imagined. In order not to get lost, its author took us through the venue of the Leaning Church. However, we did not go through everything by far.
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Cemetery and shafts
Especially on weekends, the church, which is more sloping than the tower in Pisa, Italy, is said to be lively. At present, it seems that due to the surrounding terrain it lies in a hollow, but in 1894, when the trilogy begins, it stood on a hill. Due to coal mining, it gradually fell by almost forty meters. Barbora, who was aroused by a bad feeling in the first part, ran to the church first downhill and then up again. At that time, her husband and son died in a mining accident, but the event marked the fate of other characters as well.
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Karin Lednická at the monument to the victims of the mining accident from 1894, with which her trilogy begins.
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
A monument to 235 victims is located in the cemetery across the road. “At a time when there was no social security, the death of the breadwinner, God forbid in three generations, was a real tragedy. Women could work, but who would take care of the children? “Says Karin Lednická at the memorial plaque, where the names of grandfather, father and son appear here and there.
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During World War II, exactly forty-seven years after the landslide that killed his father, Ludwik took Wojtek’s son here to assure him that he would never get involved in politics. Not far from the monument are buried real prototypes of Barka and Ludwik, to whom the pope had to consecrate the wedding due to their kinship.
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The author of the novel, who also writes witnesses’ stories, promised their granddaughter that she would not reveal a specific grave. We can go at least to both shafts where Ludwik worked. Within sight of the church, as the crow flies about half a kilometer away, there is the already dysfunctional Gabriel mine, from where the hero of the book was draining water. In 1924, there were explosions that claimed fifteen lives and great property damage.
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Barbora Mine
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
Ludwik then found a job in the engine room of the Barbora mine, where he trained Wojtek during World War II. The mine, including the engine room tower, is still standing, but it is also out of operation. It is about a 40-minute walk from Gabriela. Along the way, you can follow the information signs with period photographs installed by enthusiasts from the Stará Karvinná association.
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Karin Lednická would also like the neglected area, on which history and coal mining have so much significance, to acquire a more dignified form and to serve, for example, as a picnic site or open-air museum.
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Camps, hospitals, pubs
At one of the city’s arteries, which is now marked with the Silesian sign, even though the character is a forest road, you will certainly be interested in the so-called einmann bunkers. These were installed here during World War II by the Germans to protect nearby labor camps, mines and a newly emerging power plant, in the construction of which Jewish prisoners took part, as also mentioned in the second part of the Leaning Church.
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Einmannbunkr from World War II
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
Opposite the Jewish camp, which was located near the still existing complex (today it serves as a heating plant), was a camp for Soviet prisoners, which is mainly mentioned in Olin’s man.
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Italian prisoners, including Fortunato, were interned near the new residence of the Pospíšilové family in Na Cihelné Street, which is now marked with the Cihelní sign and is perpendicular to Silesia. Near the crossroads, there was a border between the Rajkova and U Závodní nemocnice colonies, where there were clashes between children’s groups. Karin Lednická will talk about this in the third part.
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A turnoff to Cihelní Street, at the end of which the Pospíšil resided.
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
In the Race Hospital from 1897, which is also pointed out by a sign, Barka worked as a laundromat and later treated herself with her heart. When her daughter Ženka went to school here, she greeted the smoking people in front of the building alternately in Czech and Polish. Opposite the building, which was demolished in the early 1960s, stood a cross, as elsewhere in Slezská Street. The Stará Karvinná association modified both places and added a bench to one.
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On the way from the Barbora mine, which Karin Lednická mentions in connection with the execution of twelve Polish miners, you will come across a sign in Havlíčková Street with a photo of the school Ženka started going to when the family had to move out of a damaged house after the Gabriela explosion.
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A little further on stood the House of the Association of Catholic Workers called Praca, where Ludwik went for a beer. He once met a former classmate who helped him get a job in Barbora. In 1936, during a fight for politics, Tom’s tooth broke out here.
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By local to Ostrava
If you go from the church of St. Peter of Alcantara to the other side towards Darkov, where Julka welcomed spa guests and took care of soldiers in the infirmary during the First World War, you will walk to the site of the famous Larisch brewery, where Jurek worked. Today, however, you will only find ponds here. There was nothing left of the former count’s chateau, where the European cream was gathered, surrounded by the “most beautiful garden far and wide” cared for by Leon.
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Larisch’s brewery was confiscated after the war and today you will find a pond instead.
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
This area along the road to Stonava (formerly Zámecká), where some of the heroes of the book lived, is overgrown with air raid forest. You would also search in vain for the Church of St. Henry or the town hall. Everything fell victim to coal mining. Even in the area of the Darkov Spa, you will come across some buildings from the novel, including the Social House, as well as the listed bridge over Olša, which was built in the second part. There is also the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in nearby Orlová, whose origins date back to the first half of the 13th century, although almost the entire original town was destroyed by mining activities.
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In the novel, teacher Pernica stood on the steps of the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Orlová.
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
Literary teacher Antonín Pernica, who wanted to return Těšín to the “womb of the mother nation” after the First World War and turn old Orlová into a center of culture and education within the region, watched the 20,000 gatherings in the square from the church stairs. More “scenery”, in which the heroes of the Leaning Church move, has been preserved in Ostrava, where the journey by local train from Karvinná took an hour.
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The track ended at Černá louka, then covered with heaps, on which the Tivoli amusement park was established in the early 1920s.
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A monument to the former railway in the center of Ostrava
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
Jurek and his brother Tomek have completed the same route many times to enjoy the girls in one of the companies under the “laubama”. “The local is already passing between two heaps, behind which the center of Ostrava is beginning to emerge,” writes Karin Lednická Julkou. They want to walk along Ostravice, but it is dirty and smells of slag heaps and sewage from the colonies, so the couple will turn it around at the “riveted”, today’s Sýkor Bridge.
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Julča’s attention was attracted by beautiful buildings and the lively bustle that Ostrava was experiencing at that time. She fell in love with the powder blue shoes from Bata on Masaryk Square. There, Jurek and I also looked for a balcony on the first floor of the then Union café (now Moneta), where they drank wine. It was here that Julka was addressed by Mrs. Raab, a member of the committee of the Czechoslovak Red Cross, with an offer of work in a poorhouse in Ostrava.
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The flourishing of the metropolis
Later, in her apartment on the square, she confided in her apartment on the square that she loves the architecture of the buildings that are now being built in the city, and that she and her husband will move to one of the villas near Comenius Gardens on the waterfront. She also mentioned the New Town Hall, which is to stand nearby. “The city is flourishing in spectacular beauty,” says Marie Raab in the book. Karin Lednická confirms that Ostrava, under Austria and the First Republic, could compete with much larger cities in terms of social life.
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Jurek and Julka chose the balcony of the former Union café to sit with wine.
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
After the death of her husband, whose heart could not withstand the pre-war political tensions and the shutdown of the brewery, Julka moved to Ostrava. Several times she invited Ženka, with whom she went to the National Theater of Moravia-Silesia (now Antonín Dvořák) and to the Savoy café, where Julka lived.
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The work of destruction
We also walked through Ženč’s way from the final local on today’s Smetana Square to Julčina’s house in Zámecká Street, from which you could see the former Bachner department store (now Horník Entertainment Center), a listed work by architect Erich Mendelsohn.
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Church of St. Peter of Alcantara
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
In the final scene of the second part, Ženka walked through today’s 28th October Street, in the paving of which you will come across examples of tracks that led from Bohumín to Karviná during the Leaning Church. As soon as she turned into Zámecká Street, she saw a work of doom a short distance in front of the Bachner department store. Only the lower part of the facade and the pile of rubble remained from my aunt’s house.
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“The chateau has taken it to the fullest, ma’am,” a passer-by told her.
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