“UNBEARABLE JEWISH HOUSES OF PRAYER” THE NAZI DESTRUCTION OF SYNAGOGUES BASED ON EXAMPLES FROM CENTRAL MORAVIA Cover Image

“UNBEARABLE JEWISH HOUSES OF PRAYER” THE NAZI DESTRUCTION OF SYNAGOGUES BASED ON EXAMPLES FROM CENTRAL MORAVIA
“UNBEARABLE JEWISH HOUSES OF PRAYER” THE NAZI DESTRUCTION OF SYNAGOGUES BASED ON EXAMPLES FROM CENTRAL MORAVIA

Author(s): Jan Machalla
Subject(s): Jewish studies
Published by: Židovské Muzeum v Praze
Keywords: NAZI DESTRUCTION; SYNAGOGUES; CENTRAL MORAVIA;

Summary/Abstract: The Nazi occupation of the Czech lands left traces that are still clearly visible many decades later. This is not just a question of memorials with the names of victims who were executed and murdered, or of monuments commemorating the Liberation. In some Bohemian, Moravian and Silesian towns, sites where once stood prominent buildings remain empty as the unhealed scars of the past. Buildings that were destroyed not as a result of fierce fighting, bombing, or for the construction of important military facilities, but mostly for ideological reasons. This paper will focus mainly on two such places in Central Moravia with an attempt to place the circumstances of their ‘falling vacant’ in the context of regional and European-wide events. The content of this paper may be summarized in one sentence: All that the ‘local Nazi’ had to overcome in order to destroy the symbol of Jewishness in the town that he ruled.

  • Issue Year: XLIX/2014
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 59-88
  • Page Count: 30
  • Language: English