The Pinkas Synagogue (Czech : Pinkasova synagoga) is the second oldest surviving synagogue in Prague. Its origins are connected with the Horowitz family, a renowned Jewish family in Prague. Today, the synagogue is administered by the Jewish Museum in Prague and commemorates about 77,297 Czech Jewish victims of the Shoah.
An archaeological excavation has showed that in 15th century in the area of present Pinkas Synagogue there were wells, a mikveh and inhabited houses. By 1492 in one of those houses there was a private oratory belonging to a distinguished Prague Jewish family of Horowitz. In 1535 one of the family members, Aharon Meshulam Horowitz, decided to replace the house by a synagogue for his family. In this building we can find components in Gothic and Renaissance styles – for example the reticulated vault is made in the late Gothic style but its ornaments have Renaissance features and the portal is pure Renaissance. Between 1607 and 1625 an annex in Renaissance style was added and so the synagogue was extended with a vestibule, a women's section and a balcony. The architectural plan of the annex was designed by Juda Coref de Herz (the author of the plan to Maisel Synagogue, too).
The floor of the synagogue is below the ground level so it was repeatedly afflicted by floods and moisture. In the second half of 18th century it was necessary to restore aron-ha-kodesh and bimah damaged by flood and so they were changed to the Baroque style. About the same time (in 1793) successful businessman and communal leader Joachim von Popper [1] donated the synagogue with a wrought-iron Rococo grille which adorns the bimah until now. The grille is decorated with an emblem of the Prague Jewish community – Magen David with a Middle-Age Jewish hat. [2]
In 1860, a radical step was taken to solve the problem of floods – the floor level of the synagogue was raised by 1,5 m. The baroque bimah disappeared, the arrangement of the seats was modernized (seats surrounding the walls as in Old-New Synagogue were replaced by the church-like rows) and pseudo-Romanesque style dominated the space. However, less than century later, during reconstruction in 1950–1954, the original floor-level as well as the appearance of the synagogue were restored.
During World War II, the Pinkas Synagogue served as a storehouse of Jewish liturgical utensils, which, after the ban on Jewish services in the autumn of 1941, could no longer be commonly used in Prague synagogues. [3] When the Jewish Central Museum was established in the second half of 1942, the synagogue was also to serve as a repository of monuments, which it collected from Czech and Moravian communities, but also as a conservation office. [4] Although the Jewish Central Museum considered at the beginning of 1943 moving the pre-war exposition of the Prague Jewish Museum to the Pinkas Synagogue, less than a year later it abandoned this idea due to various difficulties and the Pinkas Synagogue remained a warehouse. [5]
In following five years, the walls of the synagogue were covered with names of 77,297 [6] Bohemian and Moravian Jewish victims of Shoah. The names are arranged by communities where the victims came from and complemented with their birth and death date. [7] The memorial was designed by painters Václav Boštík and Jiří John. In 1960 it was opened to public, but it was closed after less than a decade, in 1968, after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. It was said that the reason for closing was moisture. After the fall of communist regime in 1989 the synagogue had been reconstructed for three years and then opened to public, but it took another three years to restore the inscriptions of the names on the walls that were damaged by moisture. [8] Moreover, in 2002, an old enemy of the synagogue – flood – proved its power and the inscriptions had to be restored again. [9]
On the first floor of the synagogue there is an exhibition of pictures drawn by children in the Theresienstadt Ghetto. Children drew them during lessons led by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898–1944), a painter, who studied at Bauhaus, Weimar. Dicker-Brandeis's experience from Bauhaus influenced the conception of her drawing lessons in Theresienstadt. She encouraged children to express themselves in drawing, to grapple with their grim experiences from the ghetto, as well as to capture their memories from home and dreams about the future. Their pictures therefore offer wide-ranged testimony about the daily reality of the ghetto and about individual children. Most of the children, as well as Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, were murdered in Auschwitz. The only witnesses of their lives, their drawings, "survived" because Dicker-Brandeis hid them in Theresienstadt before her deportation to Auschwitz. After the war about 4,500 pictures were handed over to the Jewish Museum in Prague. [10]
Beside activities of the Museum, Pinkas Synagogue serves also the religious community.
Projection of photographs of Shoah victims in the form of video mapping onto the mikveh of the synagogue is freely visible every evening except Fridays and Jewish holidays from Široká Street. The start and end of the projection is variable with regard to the time of sunset throughout the year. It lasts 2.5 hours in the winter months, but is shortened to 45 minutes in the summer (due to later sunset times). [11]
The digital extension of the exhibition is available through an information kiosk inside the synagogue and a web interface. The electronic database contains the names of individual victims, including their portraits, if the images are available to the museum. The database also makes it possible to search for the location of the names of individual victims on the walls of the synagogue. [12]
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The history of the Jews in Prague, the capital of today's Czech Republic, relates to one of Europe's oldest recorded and most well-known Jewish communities, first mentioned by the Sephardi-Jewish traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub in 965 CE. Since then, the community has existed continuously, despite various pogroms and expulsions, the Holocaust, and subsequent antisemitic persecution by the Czech Communist regime in the 20th century.
The Old Jewish Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery in Prague, Czech Republic, which is one of the largest of its kind in Europe and one of the most important Jewish historical monuments in Prague. It served its purpose from the first half of the 15th century until 1786. Renowned personalities of the local Jewish community were buried here; among them rabbi Jehuda Liva ben Becalel – Maharal, businessman Mordecai Meisel (1528–1601), historian David Gans and rabbi David Oppenheim (1664–1736). Today the cemetery is administered by the Jewish Museum in Prague.
Frederika "Friedl" Dicker-Brandeis, was an Austrian artist and educator murdered by the Nazis in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. From 1919-1923 she was involved at the Weimar Bauhaus in textile design, printmaking, bookbinding, and typography workshops.
Maisel Synagogue is one of the historical monuments of the former Prague Jewish quarter. It was built at the end of the 16th century which is considered to be the golden age of the ghetto. Since then its appearance has changed several times, its actual style is neo-gothic. Nowadays the synagogue belongs to the Jewish Community of Prague and is administered by the Jewish Museum in Prague as a part of its expositions.
I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942–1944 is a collection of works of art and poetry by Jewish children who lived in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. They were created at the camp in secret art classes taught by Austrian artist and educator Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. The book takes its title from a poem by Pavel Friedmann, a young man born in 1921 who was incarcerated at Theresienstadt and was later killed at Auschwitz. The works were compiled after World War II by Czech art historian Hana Volavková, the only curator of the Jewish Museum in Prague to survive the Holocaust. Where known, the fate of each young author is listed. Most died prior to the camp being liberated. The original Czech edition was published in 1959 for the State Jewish Museum in Prague; the first English edition was published in 1964 by the McGraw-Hill Book Company.
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The Jewish Museum in Prague is a museum of Jewish heritage in the Czech Republic and one of the most visited museums in Prague. Its collection of Judaica is one of the largest in the world, about 40,000 objects, 100,000 books, and a copious archive of Czech Jewish community histories.
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The Stolpersteine in Prague-Josefov lists the Stolpersteine in the town quarter Josefov of Prague, the former Jewish quarter of the city. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
The Stolpersteine in the Plzeň Region lists the Stolpersteine in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
The Stolpersteine in Lomnice u Tišnova lists the Stolpersteine in the town Lomnice in the South Moravian Region. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
The Stolpersteine in Mikulov, Slavkov u Brna and Znojmo lists the Stolpersteine in three towns of the South Moravian Region. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
The Stolpersteine in Prague-Žižkov lists the Stolpersteine in a cadastral district Žižkov of Prague. The district has been split off. Since 2002 it belongs mainly to Praha 3, but smaller parts belong to Praha 8 and Praha 10. The district is named after Hussite military leader Jan Žižka. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They memorialize the fate of the victims of Nazi Germany being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide. The Stolpersteine in Neratovice, a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the present-day Czech Republic, were collocated in 2010.
The Stolpersteine in Hranice na Moravě lists the Stolpersteine in the town Hranice na Moravě, Czech Republic. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
Tobias Jakobovits was a Rabbi, historian and Czech librarian, historian of Czech Jewry, and an expert in ancient Hebrew manuscripts. He was the chief librarian of the Prague Jewish community in the inter-war period, and the professional manager of the Jewish Museum in Prague during the Nazi Occupation. He was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in the fall of 1944 and was murdered there along with his wife.
50°05′21″N14°25′01″E / 50.0893°N 14.4170°E
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