Prague Day Two and Terezin (Holocaust) Site

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Greetings! It's the end of the second day in Prague. Tomorrow (Monday) we fly off to Budapest.

We started out today at 9 am from the hotel, walking over the the Jewish quarter. It's just five minutes from the hotel (great location -- President Hotel, and great hotel). the first building we entered -- the walls are all whitewashed inside, and then the names of the 80,000 Czech Jews who were murdered by the Nazis are written by hand in alphabetical order through the entire building. They are arranged alphabetically by surname; and then each first name is listed with birth date and date of transport (i.e. the date sent to concentration camps or death camps.) There is not date of death because the Nazis only kept records of the transport -- not the date killed.

We continued at the Maisel Synagogue, then the AltNeu synagogue, then the Chevra Kadisha building, the adjacent famous cemetery, and then finished up at the Spanish Synagogue. The AltNeu Synagogue is the functioning Orthodox synagogue, and the Spanish synagogue is also used for worship (by Beit Praha -- a liberal Jewish group) -- but only on Friday Kabbalat Shabbat. The other locations are part of the Jewish Museum of Prague. It's not a museum all in one place -- it's former religiious spaces now used to host parts of the Jewish Museum collection. As Jewish communities began to be closed down during World War II by the Nazis, the Jews themselves started to collect the religious items from those smaller communities and bring them together in Prague. The Nazis allowed this -- and no one knows why, but suspects they planned to confiscate it or use it for their own purposes some day. No record says that they planned to keep it all as a reminder of a community they destroyed, though you'll hear that said quite a bit.

One of the collected items that many Jewish readers of this blog will remember is the Torahs from all over the Czechosolovakia (as it was called back then). After the war, they were sold and taken en masse to England where they were cleaned and repaired (as much as could be -- some were able to be fully restored, others not); and then they were bought by synagogues in other countries as "Holocaust" Torahs to be kept alive and used. Our congregation has one of these Torahs. It was a labor of love on the part of those who undertook this project, and though it is very sad that they do not live on in the Czech Republic, it is more meaningful that they are kept alive by being used or displayed in living Jewish communities.

I cannot write about all that we saw and learned, but here's a few things: it was the Jewish community of Prague that began the use of the 6 pointed Star of David (Magen David) as a symbol of the Jewish community. Before that, the seven branch Temple Menorah was the Jewish symbol in communities. Prague was also the seat of Jewish printing, second only to Italy. At the Altneu Synagogue (called "old-new" because it was originally a new synagogue, but then other new ones were built so it became the "old" new one; but there's also a legend about angels helping to build it -- I'll save that story for a sermon some time....) there is a lovely yellow window so you can see when the sun is rising to know when to do morning prayers. At the Chevra Kadisha location there was a wonderful display on Jewish burial, and having our own group member who is a funeral director was so informative. We went on to the attached Jewish cemetery -- remember, this Prague Jewish community dates from the 10th century according to written records but might be even older - and in the cemetery the coffins were buried one on top of each other, and the gravestones set on top one in front of the other. So, the whole thing is several feet (quite a few!) above street level. Very interesting to walk around, and includes the grave of the famous Rabbi Judah Lowe (Lev in Czech) who is the rabbi connected to the Golem legend. If you don't know what a Golem is, check it on the web: a creature created by the rabbi using the magical holy letters; and the creature becomes the protector of the Jewish community in conflicts with anti-semitic mobs. Much more than that -- for example, one of the legends was the basis for the Sorcerer's Apprentice scene in the Fantasia movie (Mickey Mouse scene with the brooms carrying the water.)

Mid-day we had a one hour break (lunch and such), then we left from the hotel by bus for Terezin, about an hour away. I had been there previously (and to Prague as well), but it was first visit for the other 10 people. Our guide in Prague/Terezin is Daniela, and she did a wonderful job introducing the location: how the Nazis moved out the residents and turned it into a "holding camp" not only for Czech Jews destined for concentration camps, but also for Jewish from other countries. The stories of how other Jews actually bought tickets to go there thinking it was better than being sent "east" to camps were harrowing. I won't describe all about Terezin. It was not a death camp or work camp; it was a transition place where some stayed a few weeks and others for two years. The place was filled with artists and musicians and writers - among all the rest. And the spiritual resistance was strong -- composers continued to write; theater was produced; and drawings (thousands) were done of the true conditions of life. The drawings were hidden; and the artists except for 3 or 4, all were murdered eventually at Aushwitz or another death camp. One of the poets was 13 or 14 -- and his name was Hanus Hachenburg. Perhaps came from Hachen in Germany as many people in Prague were of German origin. His poem is in the "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" volume of children's poetry from Terezin; I bought an edited updated version based on that book and am bringing it back home.

Some 30,000 Jews died at Terezin: of starvation and disease. Thousands of children went through Terezin, and only 100 survived the war. The worst incident was the visit of the Int'l Red Cross -- from Switzerland, with French Red Cross officials. The visit to see how the Nazis were treating Jews who had been "moved" from their home cities was announced 6 months in advance, and Terezin was set up by the Nazis to be the "model" camp. The Jews who had never been allowed in the park -- built an athletic field and put on fake games; streets were beautified in advance of the visit and everything cleaned up. The Red Cross visited for a few hours, smiled, believed what they were told, and left. And the rest is history.

We say a wonderful museum exhibit with the barracks of how the people lived in Terezin; and also an extensive exhibit of the lives of the adult artists and their drawings displayed. The Nazis did not just take lives: they took away future potential of famous artists, writers and more. Who knows what the 6 million Jews would have accomplished for our world if they had lived - science, business, politics, art. We felt that there.

We went to the "cemetery" -- just a symbolic site next to the crematorium. The first 9000 murdered were oringinally in mass graves; then there were so many dying that the Nazis set up Jewish workers to cremate the dead bodies; but they allowed the community to store the boxes of ashes in a storage area. Before Terezin was liberated, the Nazis made a group of Jewish young men take all 20,000 boxes and throw the contents into the river, to cover up what they had done.

We had a short ceremony next to a tree planted by the Terezin children and then transplanted to the cemetery area after the war; and we lit two yarzeit candles by the crematorium. A sad day.

Arrived back in Prague at 5:30 pm. Went out to dinner with two of our group; lovely restaurant looking out at the Charles Bridge. Had ice cream (gelato) one more time, and then back to hotel after a little night walk. It's just about 11 pm now, so good night. Hope to have access to email again tomorrow.

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