I am writing this article for the benefit of any families in the USA, who may have their roots in the village of Wallern,Bohemia. While spending time in Germany I came across the curious book, Tirol in Bohemerwald, authored by Bruno Sitter. The book is no longer in print, and only a few copies are known to exist. Mr. Sitter describes how in the 1300's an entire village of Tirolean Germans were transplanted in the wilds of the Bohemian forest. For over 600 hundred years these Alpine peoples lived in this corner of Bohemia. However with the end of WWII, they were forced to leave by the Communist Government,because they were still too ethnically German. The village was known and recognized as highly unusual by travelers thru this region, because the Alpine Germans had constructed their homes in the manner they had been taught,back in the Alps. The entire village seemed to be out of place because of this fact. The village is today known by its Czech name of Volary. Originally the idea of transplanting these Germans to the Bohemian Forest was to bring their skill of artifically inseminating cattle to the area. The Alpine peoples had learned centuries before, that on land that sloped at + or - 15 degrees, it was nearly impossible for large cattle to reproduce under their own powers. Therefore the Alpine Germans had developed a method of collecting the seed of the male cow (Bull) and introducing it into the female cow's reproductive organs. This may be why the village was called Wallern, which means in English, "Whale learning". Since the village was hundreds of miles from any ocean, even the name seems quite unusual. |
