Pinkas Synagogue in Prague – a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust

The Gothic Pinkas Synagogue in the center of Josefov is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust from among Czech and Moravian Jews, whose names are remembered on the inscriptions covering the walls of the main nave of the synagogue and adjacent areas.

The text of the inscriptions was compiled on the basis of index cards created shortly after the war from preserved transport documents, registration lists and survivors’ statements. The names of Holocaust victims with their dates of birth and death are written on all the walls of the interior . The actual date of death is unknown in most cases, so it is replaced by the date of deportation to ghettos and extermination camps in the East, which is usually the last information about the victims. The names of the victims are divided according to the last place of residence before deportation or arrest, and within this division they are written alphabetically according to the surnames of individual families. In the main nave are listed the names of those whose last place of residence before deportation was in Prague , in the other adjacent spaces the names of victims fromcities and municipalities outside Prague .

On the sides of the Torah box (aron ha-kodesh) are recorded the names of some of the ghettos and camps to which Czech and Moravian Jews were deported and where the vast majority of them were exterminated. The Holocaust Memorial at the Pinkas Synagogue is a long tombstone commemorating the names of those who could not be erected a headstone.

The tour of the synagogue is enhanced by the permanent exhibition on the first floor of the Pinkas Synagogue. These are drawings of children from the concentration camp in Terezín, of whom there were over ten thousand among the Terezín prisoners. The pictures of these children document life in the camp and their immediate feelings, fear and helplessness. The museum has in its collection more than four thousand original drawings of these children, which fill the tour with a wave of emotions and also serve to reflect on the atrocities that were committed in the past. There is also a ritual bath – a mikveh – in the premises of the Pinkas Synagogue . Ritual baths in Prague serve their original purpose to this day. However, the premises are also open to visitors , these are visits with a professional guide.

Operator

Jewish Museum in Prague – Pinkas Synagogue

Related Reading

• Upper Synagogue in Mikulov
• Synagogue and Jewish cemetery in Hořice
• Synagogue and rabbi’s house in Úštěk
• Krnov Synagogue