Josefov

The most memorable part of visiting Josefov was viewing the belongings of detainees at Terezin, a holding camp that was marketed by the Nazis as a kind of Jewish resort. In particular, a suitcase owned by the children's art teacher was found to contain 4000 of their drawings. She gave the children art assignments meant to help them process everything they were experiencing, although great strides were taken to try to shelter them from reality. There is a wonderful display of the artwork and in some cases photos of the young artists. It was poignant and heartbreaking.

It was an extremely cold day when I was there, so I didn't take many photos. I have included historical information from this site: Josefov History. There are also wonderful photos at the link (but look at mine first). If you Google "Prague Jews" there is a ton of information available but here is a small bit of background for you:

Josefov is the old Jewish quarter of Prague, situated near the river, northwest of the Astrology Clock. It is named in honor of Emperor Joseph II of the Austrian Empire who ruled the Czech Republic in the 18th century, the time when the Jewish quarter was incorporated into the city.

"Jews had first settled in Prague in the 10th century near the Prague castle which is just across the Vltava river from Josefov. At the time of the First Crusade in 1096, the first recorded pogrom took place in Prague when Jews were systematically killed by the Crusaders. This violence may have been what prompted the Jews to move to the present Josefov quarter of Prague, near the Old Town, in the 12th century. In the 13th century, the Pope decreed that the Jews should be segregated from the Christians and a wall was built around the Jewish quarter.

The Jews participated in the revolutionary activity throughout Europe in 1848 which finally brought equal rights for the Jews and the walls of the ghetto were torn down, allowing the Jews to live anywhere in the city of Prague. This caused a number of violent anti-Semitic protests by the Czechs in Prague. With the granting of equal rights to the Jews, there was also pressure put on them to assimilate, instead of maintaining their separate culture. To assimilate or not to assimilate: that was The Jewish Question. In the 19th century, The Jewish Question was widely discussed; even Karl Marx wrote a dissertation on the subject.

When the wealthy Jews moved out of the former ghetto, it soon became a slum as other poor people moved in. By 1890 the former Jewish quarter had a population of 186,000 people, but only 20% of them were Jewish. In 1893 the city decided to completely demolish the whole Josefstadt quarter, leaving only 6 synagogues, the old Jewish cemetery, the Ceremonial Hall and the Old Jewish Town Hall, which are collectively known as the Jewish Museum."




One of the most impressive sights in Prague is the Old Jewish cemetery which was used from 1439 to 1787, and is the oldest existing Jewish cemetery in Europe. The Nazis made it a policy to destroy Jewish cemeteries, sometimes using the tombstones for target practice, but Hitler ordered that this cemetery be left intact, since he was apparently planning to build a Jewish museum in Prague after all the Jews in Europe had been exterminated.