I am off to the Jewish quarter today, known as Josefov. They are supposed to have a couple of exhibits there that I would like to see. The earliest evidence of Jews in this area was in the 13th century. They were persecuted over the centuries of time that they lived here...even before the devastation of the holocaust. They were forced to live within a walled community, known as a "ghetto.". As their ranks increased, the size of their allotted space remained the same, leading to overcrowding and disease. That is why today, we use the word "ghetto" to describe areas where the living conditions are poor.
I will start out at Pinkus Synagogue...
one of the five synagogues in the Josefov area.
The impact is overwhelming when you walk into this building...the walls are covered with the names of Jews, just from Prague and the surrounding areas within the Czech Republic, who perished in the holocaust. One can't help but cry...in fact I'm even teary again as I write this. Then I started looking for surnames of friends of mine. And that made it even more impactful. How could this have happened? It is so disturbing. I had this same empty pit in the stomach feeling when I visited the Holocaust Museum in DC with my sister when it first opened. We just sat on a bench together afterwards, speechless for a period of time. Neither of us wanted to break the silence.
But I haven't even gotten to the heart wrenching part of the exhibit that will really tear you up. When the Jews were being transported to a holding camp, before being sent to Auschwitz, there was a woman, Freidyl Dicker-Brandeis, who decided that in order to help all of the children, that they should draw....that art would be therapeutic and would help take their minds off of what was going on. A total of 4,000 drawings were done by the children during this time. At such time as she was moved to Auschwitz herself, in the autumn of 1944, she hid these drawings in two suitcases and hid them, which is how they survived, and many are now exhibited here. The children drew about topics such as memories of home, dreams about returning home, death and darkness, good and evil, holiday celebrations, how they were transported via train and truck, scenes of showering in the communal shower, of lining up to get food, of living in the barracks...the insights of these children was astounding. I noticed that many of the pictures, even if they were about positive things, had something in the picture that was black...even one with a rainbow had a black line included in the rainbow. There were 10,000 children who went to this camp, and most of them perished.
As a side story, as I catch my breath, something that is not a part of the exhibit, but which our tour guide told us...there was a man from England named Winton, who offered to Czech parents to take their children to England to "sit out" the war. While many parents were leery, many of them signed up anyway. But he was only able to get out about 650 children before Hitler shut down the trains. One train with 250 children was turned back, and that still haunts him today. Noone knew he had done this until his wife found his diary in 1988. There is now a movie about to come out called Winton's Children...and yes, he is still alive (over 100 years old), and recently he came to the movie's premiere in Prague. I sure hope it makes it to the New York theaters and that I get to see it!
Right outside is the Old Jewish cemetery...
This is another example of the overcrowding of the jewish community. This was the only site that they had available to them for burials. When they ran out of room, they would just make another layer, and bury people on top of one another. They would try to pull out gravestones and put all of them on top. You can't see it in this photo, and I was unable to find a good way to photograph it, but this sits about 20 feet or so above street level, due to the many layers. Many important people of the Jewish community in Prague were buried here, including Rabbi Lowe, of Golem fame, and Rabbi Maisel, one of the important mayors from the 16th century. (Maisel was actually popular with the Austrian nobility as he helped fund the war with the Turks....so they let him do a lot of rebuilding of the ghetto at that time).
Next, I went to the Spanish Synagogue...
...which is the most beautiful one. This was built with a Moorish influence (thus the name). It was beautiful inside, too (no photos allowed). There they also had part of an exhibit of the history of the Jews in the area--the other part was in the Maisel Synagogue. As an aside, the only reason that they even have the items to be displayed in this exhibit is because someone convinced Hitler not to destroy them, and his plan was to establish a museum for an extinct population. How sick was that man!!? And that it wasn't/isn't just one man!!
Other highlights of this area, include the ceremonial burial hall adjacent to the cemetery...
...the town hall,with the Hebrew clock which is read backwards...
...the old/new synagogue...
...as well as the Maisel and Klaussen Synagogues (no photos of those).
The actual "ghetto" was torn down in the early 1900's to make way for new construction of mostly art nouveau buildings.
Time to go sit on a bench for some moments of reflection...
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