The Synagogue Treasures of Bohemia and Moravia [antikvár]

the s y U E :i" I ' ), I . 1 , E A S U R E I N H E M I INTRODUCTION The treasure of Jewish textiles found in the Jewish Museum in Prague forms a collection which is unique in the world. The collection numbers some 10.000 items that accrued to the Museum during "World War II. The number of items in the collection is in itself surprising, the store-rooms of the Museum housing in all about 2.800 torah curtains, 1000 top draiperies, 4.800 torah mantles, 1000 covers, swaddling bands, cushions and other minor textile objects used in the services of the synagogue. Naturally a collection of this kind and of so unusually large a size was not formed in the normal way. When the Germans decided to destroy Bohemian and Moravian Jewry during the years 1939—1945, they first laid down the main lines of their plan of extermination, leaving all the details to be worked out later. The first thing the Germans did was to draw up exhaustive lists of all Jewish citizens resident in Bohemia and Moravia, and to make inventories of all Jewish property, public as well as private. Thus, having completed their preparations, they proceeded to herd together all the people whose names were on the lists, and, at the same time, collected all the property they had listed in huge storage premises which became filled with furniture, wearing apparel, china, electric lamps, and household utensils and furnishings of all kinds. Besides these general store-houses, the Germans established a special storehouse for articles from the synagogues. It was from this collection that the doomed Jewish community in Prague was able to instal these treasures in a Museum, where, till the last, experts from the Jewish community carried [VII]