A Visit to the Prague Jewish Ghetto

 

                                                       Pinkas Synagogue, Wikimedia Commons

In 2013, a friend and I did an extended tour of Eastern Europe.  I found the Pinkas Synagogue and the Old Jewish Cemetery in the Prague Ghetto one of the most impactful places I visited.  The Jewish Museum of Prague administers the synagogue and cemetery.

                                           Detail of the Pinkas Synagogue, courtesy of the author

The Pinkas Synagogue, founded in 1535 by the Horowitz family, was built in a late Gothic Style and is the second oldest building in the Prague Ghetto.  There was originally a house of prayer on the site when Aaron Meshulam Horowitz rebuilt the property.  Builders remodeling the synagogue added Renaissance features, a women's section, and a women's gallery in the mid-seventeenth century.  Floods have damaged several areas in the synagogue, including the names on the walls.  Workers repainted every lost or damaged name.

                                               Interior of Pinkas Synagogue, courtesy of the author

When I visited here on a late summer day, I was mesmerized by the 80,00 names painted onto the walls of this house of prayer.  These were the names of victims of the Holocaust from Bohemia and Moravia.  The enormity of the crimes committed against humanity was self-evident in this quiet, prayerful place.  I stood in silence, unable to fathom the cruelty of one group of human beings against another. 

                                            Names of Holocaust victims, courtesy of the author

Another synagogue room contained the art of children held prisoner at the Terezin Concentration Camp.  The combination of horror and hope expressed by these dear children brought me to tears.  Terezin was a concentration camp 30 miles from Prague.  The Nazis sent over 150,00 Jews to the camp, including 15,00 children. Terezin was not a death camp, but more than 33,00 people died from disease, lack of medical care, and starvation.  The Gestapo transported many prisoners to extermination camps such as Treblinka and Auschwitz.  Only 17,247 people survived their time at Terezin or the other camps they were sent to.  Ultimately, less than 150 children survived.

                                                        Children's art, Pinkas Synagogue, courtesy of the author

 

The art of the children of Terezin was part of a secret art program organized by the artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis.  Friedl was a prisoner at the camp.  She used art to help the children express themselves, a way for them to develop imagination and emotion.  The Nazis sent Friedl and many children to Auschwitz, but she hid two suitcases filled with 4500 children's drawings before she was sent to the death camp.  After the war, some of the drawings were recovered and sent to the Jewish Museum in Prague.  Many of the drawings are still contained at Terezin.  

                                                            Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Wikimedia Commons

 

Visitors can only access the Old Jewish Cemetery, one of the world's oldest surviving Jewish burial grounds, through the synagogue.  The first burials were interred in the early 1400s.  The last burial was in 1787.  Land for Jewish graves was scarce.  People were buried on top of each other here, with small amounts of dirt between them.  In some places, people were buried ten deep.  There are 12,000 highly personalized headstones in this resting place for many of the original Jewish families of Prague.  People have left pebbles on some stones, which is no longer permissible.  They are often left to keep the soul where it belongs or to indicate the deceased's memory continues to live.

                                                           Old Jewish Cemetery, courtesy of the author

                                                           Old Jewish Cemetery, courtesy of the author

Thank you to Frank Fristensky for communications on children's art at Terezin.