There’s a “Blumentritt street” in Sta. Cruz (unless it has been changed by officials who have nothing better to do) named after Ferdinand Blumentritt, an Austrian professor who was a good friend of Jose Rizal.
We met a grandson of Blumentritt, Ernst, when President Ramos visited Litomerice in Prague in September 1997. As part of the Philippine Centennial celebration, Philippine historians were re-tracing Jose Rizal’s European sojourn and one of the places he visited was Litomerice. (In the book “Jose Rizal, Filipino Doctor and Patriot” by Jose Baron Fernandez, the place is referred as Leitmeritz.)
Rizal was 26 years old when he visited Litomerice. That was his first meeting in person meeting with Blumentritt, with whom he had been corresponding for over a year. 
(Left photo:Ferdinand Blumentritt and his family. Drawn by Rizal while in Dapitan. From the book “Jose Rizal – Filipino Doctor and Patriot)
Eight years older than Rizal, Blumentritt was teaching geography and history in the Imperial Etheneum of Leitmeritz. Without leaving his home near the Elba, he had published several ethnographic and linguistic works about the Philippines.
Having heard of Blumentritt’s works on the Philippines, Rizal wrote him and even sent some of his works for the professor’s comments.
In Fernandez’ account, Rizal had just recovered from an illness when he and another friend, Maximo Viola, visited Litomerice. “By this time, Rizal felt he was cured of his illness – at least clinically. With this frame of mind and with a feeling of satisfaction that he was about to fulfill a mission, he left Berlin on the 11th of May 1887. One of the suitcases contained nothing but letters. The first stop was Leitmeritz, with the aim of meeting Blumentritt and his family, a wish that both of them shared. Their friendship had become closer with the years, and would become still closer in the future.
“From Testchen he (Rizal) sent a letter to Blumentritt announcing his coming. On the 13th he and Viola arrived in Leitmeritz. In spite of the fact that Rizal had told Blumentritt not to meet him at the station since he did not know the hour of arrival, there was Ferdinand, whom he had known only by photograph. He accompanied them to Hotel Krebs, where they were to stay.
“Later they dined at the Blumentritt residence and were introduced to Mrs. Blumentritt and their daughter, Rosa. The main topic of the conversation was Noli (Me Tangere) and Ferdinand repeated once again the German phrase, to the effect that the work was written with blood from the heart.
“With his culture and thorough knowledge of the small city, Blumentritt was a perfect guide. During his hours of work, his friends substituted for him. Dinner was again offered by Mrs. Blumentritt. The next day, there was a meeting of the Club of Tourists, of which Blumentritt was secretary. Rizal attended the meeting in deference to the wishes of his friend.
“On the 15th of May, they visited Dr. Czepelak, an intimate friend of Blumentritt, and on the 16th, the naturalist Professor Klutschek. Viola and Rizal invited them to dinner at the Hotel Krebs; before dinner they visited the island of Tiradores in Elba. Afterwards, in a private conversation with Viola, Blumentritt said that “Rizal was the greatest son of the Philippines, and his coming into the world was like an apparition of a rare comet, with a special brilliance, which could be seen and admired only once in a great while.”
Rizal and Viola left Litomerice the next day for Marseilles in France, then to Manila. Rizal’s friendship with Blumentritt flourished and both of them influenced profoundly each others views and works. Blumentritt later became a “collaborator in struggle for the liberation of the Philippines”, Fernandez said.
Upon his return to Manila, enriched by his European experience, Rizal organized La Liga Filipina with the purpose of uniting Filipinos to liberate themselves from their colonial yoke. It was considered subversive by Spanish authorities.
(Rizal on his way to his execution at the Luneta, Dec. 30, 1896. Prize-winning painting by Isaac Tolentino. From the book “Jose Rizal -Filipino Doctor and Patriot”)
We are remembering today Rizal’s death in the hands of fellow Filipinos upon orders of Spanish colonizers 109 years ago.
In that 1997 visit to Litomerice, we were so happy to meet a “living Blumentritt”. A retired geography professor, the 86-year-old Ernst Blumentritt was visiting relatives in Litomerice when he learned that President Ramos was visiting the place. He was also excited to have a re-connection with the people of the country his grandfather so loved.
Ernst Blumentritt , who has never been to Manila, said he has a framed map of the Philippines in his home showing Blumentritt street.
Litomerice is a sedate, lovely pace with a plaza paved with cobble stones. Like many European cities, it has retained its old- world ambience and has kept its reputation as an educational and cultural center.
A Czech historian described Litomerice in 1887 as a “paradise” with “delightful gardens, hills overgrown with corn and mountainsides adorned with vineyards.” Fifty-seven years after, Litomerice was occupied by the Nazis. Two kilometers away from Litomerice, in the town of Terezin, is a memorial where once stood a concentration camp built by the Germans.
The story of Rizal and Litomerice should make us vigilant of sinister forces that threaten our freedom, won with the blood of our heroic forbears.
(Sorry for the quality of the picture. That’s Ernst Blumentritt being interviewed by me)
GMA today called on the people to keep alive Rizal’s ideals. Hindi na kinilabutan!
Who can ever forget that three years ago, while commemorating Rizal’s heroism, she announced she would not be running in the 2004 presidential elections.
Since she does not value her words, why should we?
Rizal is remembered in a good light. Good men, good remembrance.
What do you think of GMA? How will she be remembered?
Jose Rizal is my hero for all times. A man for all seasons, Rizal is as relevant today as he was a century thence. When I was still in UP ages ago, I use to scour the bountiful library for books about him. But my favorite was Rafael Palma’s “Pride of the Malay Race.”
It is quite ironic that his search “Where are the youth of the land?” is not being answered today. Where indeed are the youth who will stand up for leadership of the country? Why does it take an old man like Abat to answer the call? Rizalist’s told me that the youth are in the USA making it big time. Perhaps indeed we deserve what we got in GMA.
Hi Ellen, I like your picture with Ernst Blumentritt. You might as well caption it: Rendezvous with history. That is a far cry from “Gloria riding the surfboard”.
Rizal is everything that Gloria is not. Rizal is not a liar, cheat nor thief. There is still a chance for Gloria to do a Rizal – to be executed at Bagumbayan.
Sana naman di maging history lesson si Gloria ng mga future generations
about Rizal let us hope that people who say that he should be considered obsolete are now themselves obsolete..read somewhere(disadvantage of reading too many newspapers nakakinit ng ulo minsan)
ako naman galit nga ke GMA pero kahit pano me nagawa naman ang mga alipores nya
at yung mister nya ok pa din ang nagawa sa sports (pero hanngang dun lang)
taray ni Luli nung gusto interview ni Beth Celis sa HK….
at please lang wag nya iklaim na resilient sya at naisahan nya tayo
maaring naisahan nya si FVR
pero huwag isali lahat….
baka naman pag dating ng june 1(kung nakaupo pa sya)sabihin dapat jan 1 pa lang nagfile na ng impeachment
kung tutuo ang nabanggit ni Almonte kahit binawi nya na 6 months ang deadline ng Chacha
parang kumagat ang malakanyang dahil me nabasa ako sa STAR
na this year cHACHA plebiscite na…
OOPs dec 31 2005 pa lang plebiscite napala next year 2006 daw
happy new year!
wag natin sirain kagandahan lalaki at babae (beauty) natin
sa gloria na yan
GMA, like Marcos, has destroyed our institutions (Comelec, Supreme Court, military, Congress, bureaucracy) that are the backbones of our democracy. She will be remembered for that.
Karl, don’t give too much credit to Mike Arroyo for the SEA victory. Hindi naman niya pera ang ginastos doon. It’s the job of the government to take care of our athletes.
kaya minsan nasabi ko bali wala kung palitan presidente
magkukwento muna ako pasensya na
Unang ehemplo
me kaso ang Philippine navy dahil sa isang tinatawag na Marcelo fund (pang gawa ng sasakyang pandagat ng hukbo)na billion piso yata kung sumahin…
ito ay simula 1985 pa ang pondo na ito
madaming beses na napalit liderato ang navy afp,presidente,court of appeals,sandigan,ombudsmen,COA
pero si Dumancas lang ang napag initan ni Disierto kaya malas nya at ni erpats na ksama sa 11 flag officers na nasabit
bukod pa sa 100 officers,personel.suppliers,dealers na sumabit din sa kaso
sampol lang yan ng pang matagal na problema
meron pa isa na lang
yung PMA class 59 ni erpat sinubukan ba naman ifile sa Supreme court ang over pricing ng 25 DPWH projects na may kinalaman sa mga bridges to nowhere
anong mangyayari dun ….wala ….pag alis ni GMA di pa nababsa ng clerk ng supreme court ang kaso
pero tulad nyo di ako nawawalan ng pag asa na magbabago pa ang lahat pero una kailangan magkasusundo tayong lahat
Right . We should never lose hope. Gloria would be delighted if we give up now. We should not give her that pleasure.
I believe in the triumph of good over evil, eventually.
Could she be thinking of the lie she told the Filipino people on this spot, on Dec. 30, 2002?
Alaala ni Rizal di dapat kinakalimutan, kahit matagal na kami dito sa Canada, pinoi na pinoi pa rin magtagalog ang aking anak, walang tonong balikbayan o cdn accent kapag Pilipino ang salita ( 5 yrs old lang sya ng dumating dito), pero karamihan o halos lahat ng mga batang pinoi dito dina makasalita ng tagalog, nakakaintindi man sasagutin ka naman ng ingles paraho rin sa US na ganito ang nangyayari. Sana sa mga nasa ibang bansa na katulad ko na kasama ang mga anak, huwag nilang pabayaan na mabura ang salitang Pilipino sa kanilang mga anak dahil pwede naman maging bilinggual ang bata. Yan lang ang pamana ko para sa aking anak at para sa pag alala kay Rizal na ating bayani. At sa kanyang paglaki pag-uwi na nagiisa sa Pilipinas hindi siya magmumukhang tanga at pangingilagan ng ibang Pilipino yung common tao na di sanay magsalita ng ingles lalo na yung di nakapagaral, dahil naiilang sila, natatawa sila sa sarili pag nag komedi english sila, hirap na makipagusap sa balikbayan.
Hi Ellen,
That was a sharp pic of Gloria in 2002. Lately however, there is only ghost of gloria at the Rizal monument – harbinger of good tidings??
Hi Valentin, I like the middle name you gave to Eddie Gil. That cracked me up, ha ha ha!
The above picture of Gloria in the Rizal monument was taken just last Friday. I don’t have the one in 2002.
I got this e-mail from Dr. Andre Navarra Morato. I appreciate very much the corrections:
Dear Miss Ellen Tordesillas,
Happy New Year greetings from an avid reader of your column, who is residing in Berlin,Germany.
Your article, “Rizal’s five days in Litomerice”, appearing on the December 30, 2005 online edition of Malaya’s opinion page interested me a lot. It so happens that I have been planning to go to Litomerice for several years now, but I have not been lucky enough to do so.
Many attempts have been made, but there were always some obstacles in realizing a trip to this Czech town.
I was rather irritated by several passages contained in your article.
(a) Rizal did not spend five days in Litomerice/Leitmeritz. He and Maximo Viola arrived at the train station of Leitmeritz at 1:30 p.m. of May 13,1887. They stayed only for four days, leaving the same town at 9:45 p.m. of May 16th, 1887. Thus, a more appropriate title of your article could have been “Rizal’s four days in Litomerice”.
(b) “There’s a…named after Ferdinand Blumentritt, a German professor who was a good friend of Jose Rizal”. Blumentritt was not German. He was Austrian born in Bohemia, which once formed part of the Austro-Hungarian empire (based in Vienna), an archrival of the German Empire (based in Berlin). Present-day Bohemia forms part of the Czech Republic!
(c) When Rizal and Viola left Berlin on May 11, 1887, they did not go directly to Leitmeritz. They stopped in Dresden, where they met the director of the Ethnographic Museum, Dr. A.B. Meyer, whom he met already before on October 31, 1886 on his way to Berlin from Heidelberg.
(d) “From Testchen he (Rizal) sent a letter to Blumentritt announcing his coming…” Testchen? It is a German word meaning “small test or small examination”. Obviously, the present-day town of Decin is meant by this. If so, then it should be spelled Tetschen. The latter is just a few kilometers away from Litomerice. I put great emphasis on geographical places, especially, when just a few kilometers to the east of Litomerice another town bearing the name Teschen is to be located on the map. The latter is now known as Cieszyn, belonging presently to Poland – and like Decin/Tetschen also belonged before 1920 to Bohemia!!!…Still on the same passage of your article: Rizal did not send a letter from Tetschen/Decin. Rizal sent one from Berlin in April before leaving the German imperial capital. If I remember right, it was a telegram. Let’s just consider the distance between Tetschen/Decin and Leitmeritz/Litomerice: 43 kilometers only.
(e) …”the island of Tiradores in Elba”. There exists no place like this. Tiradores is Spanish for . Elba is an island off the Italian mainland, where Napoleon was exiled for 99 days before returning back again to France. The distance between Leitmeritz and the island of Elba is approximately 900 kilometers by plane!
Obvioulsy, what is meant by your article is the present-day isle known as “Strelecky ostrov”, a riverine isle located between Litomerice and Terezin on the right bank of the ELBE RIVER. Strelecky is the Czech equivalent for the Spanish “tirador”.
As a person, who use old manuscripts/literature as reference, I am very particular about exact nomenclature, title and names. Just one wrong statement may lead to wrong dissemination of information for future or even present generations.
(f) “Rizal and Viola left Litomerice the next day for Marseilles in France, then to Manila.” The fact is, both Filipino adventurers left Litomerice on May 16, 1887. They did not leave Litomerice for Marseilles…. Before they reached the French port city on July 3, 1887 (that means after 48 days), they have visited cities like Prague, Brunn, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Ulm, Stuttgart, Basel and Geneva. In the latter Swiss city, they separated ways. Viola went to Barcelona, while Rizal made a side trip to Rome, which took him first to Turin, Milan, Venice, Florence before finally reaching Marseilles. Thus, it was a little bit more than 1 1/2 months before Rizal reached Marseilles after leaving Litomerice!
(g) “A Czech historian describes Litomerice in 1887….Fifty seven years after, Litomerice was occupied by the Nazis.” 1887 plus 57 years means 1944. This is not true. German troops came to Leitmeritz in 1941 and they established a Jewish ghetto in the nearby town of Terezin (formerly known as Theresienstadt) that same year, expanding it in 1942 to accommodate more Jews from German-occupied territories. By 1944 many lives have been claimed already…
Please do not take my statements as an offense. I just wanted to correct some data.
Very sincerely yours,
Andre Navarra Morato. M.D.
I appreciate very much the corrections, Andre.
I have corrected the “German professor” to “Austrian professor”. I saw in the book by Fernandez a newspaper item describing Blumentitt as “El sabio profesor Austriaco”.
The Litomerice account was taken from Mr. Fernandez book. I guess those were typographical errors. It’s good you corrected them.
By the way,”Jose Rizal, Filipino Doctor and Patriot” was published by Manuel L. Morato. Your uncle?
I appreciate very much your corrections. Thank you.
Adios, Ute
(Anumang pagkakahawig sa anumang tula
ay hindi po sinasadya)
Sa madilim na piitan
si Ute ay nalugmok
Sapagkat siya’y pagod
sa maghapong pagmumokmok;
Bukas ng umaga
sa ikatlong tila-ok
Doon sa Bagumbayan
haharapin ay paputok.
Paputok na haharapin
ay hindi naman kwites
At hindi din ito
libentador na mintes;
Haharapin niya’y
baril na matutulis
Na iu-umang sa kanyang ulo
ng kastilang mga pulis.
Si Ute kasi ay may
isinulat na libro
Na tungkol sa pagong
at kaaway na tsonggo;
Nagalit ang kastila
sapagkat diumano
Ang unggoy na magaling
ay di dapat natalo.
Kaya nga si Ute ay
humarap sa hukuman
At doon ay umapela
sa sintensyang binitiwan;
Ang huwes na puyat
ay tulog sa upu-an,
At ang kanyang hilik ay
dinig ng buong bayan.
Nang ang huwes ay nagising
may hatol na ibinaba,
Bago pa idinilat
ang matang mey kulaba;
Sa sintensyang ibinigay,
si Ute’y nadismaya:
Tatlong buwan, ‘sang araw, at ‘sang bituin
ang bigay-hatol sa kanya.
Si Ute ay nagreklamo
pagkat di niya alam
Kung hanggang kailan ang
‘sang bituing tagal;
Kaya nang baguhin
ang sintensyang mahal,
Si Ute ay ngumite’t
umirap sa mga hangal.
Dalawandaang taon
ang sa kanya’y ibinigay;
Mabuti na lang, eka n’ya
at hindi habambuhay;
Kaya nga sa kulungan
habang naghihintay
Ay sumulat ng tula
na sa mundo’y ibibigay.
Ang tulang ito na
kanyang ini-ayos
Ay pinamagatan niyang:
“Si Ute Mo Ay Adios.”
Sa tulang ito ay
kanyang ibinuhos
Ang kanyang pag-ibig
sa kasintahan sa Ilocos.
“Adios Patricia Julia Adornado,”
ang kanyang pasimula. . .
Panawagan sa sintang
matangkad na talaga
Pagkat lahing panungkit
at basketbolista
Na balang araw ay
sisikat sa Pee-Beh-Ah.
Isang araw sa piitan
siya ay naglagot,
Sapagka’t pagkaing bigay
ay palaging talbos;
Talbos ng kamote
sa maghapon inu-ubos
At nilagang kangkong naman
ang sabaw na hinihigop.
Kaya ang nangyari
siya ay nagta-e
Ang sikmura’y sumakit
at nagalit ang bulate;
Sapagkat di mapigil
ang kulungan ay pumanghe
Kaya ‘sang madaling araw
sa Bagumbayan pina-ire.
Dala ang tula
na alay kay Patricia,
Doon sa damuhan
siya ay pumunta,
Nang matapos magmilagro
ay kanyang napuna,
Mga batong pang-gewang
ay matatalas na talaga.
Kaya ang damdaming
sa papel inilagda
Ay nadurog nang ipunas
at sa puwet napunta.
Sa laki ng hinagpis
ay napasigaw siya
Na s’yang ikinagulat
nitong mga gwardiya.
Sa gulat at takot
itina-as ang sandata
At sabay-sabay na
nagpaputok sila;
Doon sa damuhan
si Ute ay bumulagta,
Sapo pa rin ang ilong pagkat
mabaho pong talaga.
Sa hiningang agaw-buhay
ay kanyang hiniling
Sa isang gwardiyang
hindi pa lasing:
“Pwede ba na ang ‘yong panyo
ay aking hiramin
“At sa aking mga mata
ay ilagay na piring
“Dyahe kasi itong amoy na
nakaririmarim.”
At bago itinirik ang
mga matang malamlam,
Ay dumaloy sa labi ang
sambit na marahan,
At bago gumuho
ang dibdib na luha-an,
Ang bulong ay narinig:
“Huling, paalam!”
At ang gwardya sibil
na si Julio ay nabagbag,
At sa kanyang pisngi ay
mey luhang nalaglag;
At bago bumuka
ang bukang-liwayway,
Tikom niyang labi’y bumulong:
“Paalam rin, Dyoskoday!”
by: Atong
If Rizal were alive today, what would he be saying about what’s happening now?
Mr. Blumentritt looks like a customer from me with the same name. He will be 99 Years old next June and he is still in amazing good shape and brilliant intellect and sanity. I see him once every year and everytime I’m amazed by his really noble decency. People like him are rare in this time.
Is it really possible that you talk about Mr. Blumentritt living close to Ulm in Germany?