Jewish Eastern Europe: What Once Was

Europe is filled with history and that history includes the history of the Jews of Eastern Europe, part of my extended family.  We did not go to Eastern Europe just to study the history of Jews, but Jews are a part of that history:  They were virtually everywhere - large cities and small villages:  Few are there today and in many places, no trace remains.  We saw signs of the good times as shown by large and elaborate synagogues and by large and elaborate tombstones; we saw signs of the bad times as shown by destroyed synagogues, desecrated cemeteries and concentration camps.  

On this trip of more than eight weeks, we spent about a week to ten days in each of the major cities we visited and took several day trips to smaller cities and villages.  We visited museums, castles, palaces, churches and many historic sites.  This blog post does not discuss that. This post is devoted to our visits to sites of particular Jewish interest.  

This was not a pilgrimage:  We did not come to Eastern Europe with the specific intention of visiting Jewish sites.  We started our trip in Prague with no planned route and no agenda.  We went where we learned of things we might find of interest. Although all people of the world are cousins, as Jews of Eastern European descent, the Jews of Eastern Europe are our closer cousins (genetically, no more distant than 4th or 5th cousins). 

While we discussed several European countries before we left home, Sarah, for personal reasons, was hesitant about going to Poland and we were unsure if we would even go there.  After we had gone, Sarah felt a bit of relief from some of what she found.  Since Poland was the last country we visited, Sarah's journey of discovery is toward the end of this post.  


We did not make it our business to visit every synagogue, cemetery or Holocaust memorial; we are not writing a book on the subject and we had other things which we wanted to do.  There are things which we saw and there are things which we did not see.  We made choices.
 



 In 1930, Eastern Europe was home to most of the world's Jewish population.  Thousands of towns had a significant Jewish population which is now gone; only vacant synagogues and vandalized cemeteries remain.  In some of the cities, the Jewish population is growing, but the number of people is hardly a blip on a census.  Poland, which had three million Jewish citizens, one-third of Europe's Jews, lost 90% to the Holocaust; most of the rest emigrated due to continued hostility. 

Although Prague is a city with a wealth of Jewish history, we had other reasons for going there than visiting Jewish sites, but they were there and we are Jewish.  My family is from Belarus and came to the U.S. before WW I; Sarah's family is from Poland and went through the Holocaust.  This visit to Eastern Europe was very personal for her.

The Czech Republic 

Prague

Prague was to be used by the Nazis as a showcase-museum of an extinct people.  The synagogues are intact and have items looted by the Nazis from synagogues across Eastern Europe which the Nazis planned to display in their museum.

Although the synagogues are intact, most don't function as synagogues: They are museums of the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe.  Some of the synagogues are relatively new, not much more than a hundred years old.  One, the New Shul, is ancient.  A 7-day ticket gets one entrance to the museums and the cemetery which are all within a few blocks.  Toilets are 10 ČK extra per use.

In Prague, we stayed in the Old Town near the Jewish Quarter; there was a yeshiva up the street.  From our location, we could easily walk to all the important sites and the train station.

The Jerusalem Synagogue (1906) (r) is frequently missed

 on Jewish tours of Prague as it is in the New Town.  

It is the largest synagogue in Prague.

 

The Old-New Synagogue has served Prague's Jewish community for more than 700 years. Prague also has a few kosher restaurants, mostly for tourists.

We were the only participants of our tour of the building and had a lot of time to discuss the Jewish community with our tour guide, a member of the congregation.






The Spanish Synagogue is said to be the most beautiful in Europe.  For interior photos, click here.   No longer a synagogue, this museum displays valuable and historic items looted by the Nazis from synagogues which no longer exist and is a venue for concerts.  The other synagogues of the Jewish Museum of Prague are museums devoted to the historical/cultural or are memorials.

The Jewish Cemetery of Prague is interesting because of an unusual practice.  With limited space, over the centuries the cemetery added additional layers of dirt, raised the stones and buried more people.  Sort of a mortuary apartment house.  Visitors to the cemetery see a forest of stones.

 

Allen at the grave of Rabbi Loew, purported creator of the Golem.

Terezín

Terezín Concentration Camp was a town built inside a large 18th-century fortress which was designed to protect Prague from invaders.  The town was evacuated and its residents replaced by Jews largely from Prague and elsewhere in Czechoslovakia.  It was used by the Germans to show the world that they were giving the Jews a safe place to live.  Many died here from poor conditions and many more stayed for a short time before being transferred to a death camp.

 

 

 

Living quarters and an attic synagogue.

 

 

 

 

 

.

  
Cremains were kept in numbered bags.  Later the ashes were dumped in the river.

Plzeň

 The Great Synagogue of Plzeň is the second largest synagogue in Europe.  It is in good condition and is used for concerts.  It no longer functions as a synagogue.  

It is was built in the 1890s.

In a courtyard surrounded by four blocks of commercial buildings, there is an older, smaller synagogue in Plzeň that has been gutted and is being renovated by the government.  It is currently a construction site, but the gate was unlocked and there was no sign to the contrary (at least none that I could read), so Sarah and I ventured in.  [Maybe they thought that no one would walk on planks over pits in the dark.]  

Amid the scaffolding and hanging wires, we could see the newly restored Aron HaKodesh.  

Český Krumlov

On the outskirts of the scenic Medieval town of Český Krumlov we found another synagogue that was being renovated by the government for use as a museum and cultural center for the community.  There are no Jews here. 

Built in 1909, this synagogue only functioned for a few decades before the community was destroyed, but it shows the level of tolerance by the Austro-Hungarian government toward their Jewish citizens that the Jews felt comfortable enough to invest in a structure of this size for a small community.  

A school is part of the building.

Information about the Český Krumlov Synagogue and more photos can be found here.

Třebíč

The Jews of Třebíč were confined to a narrow strip of land between a ridge and the river by law and a gate.  The Jews were emancipated by the Austro-Hungarian emperor in the mid-1800s, but largely stayed in the ghetto by tradition.   Our visit here was one of the high-points of our trip.

The ghetto in Třebíč, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was described in our guidebook as just the way it was when the Jews left in the 1930s.  I envisioned the Lower East Side.  I was wrong.  The Jews may have left in the 1930s, but the buildings hadn't changed for centuries.  The newer of the two synagogues (right) was built in 1268.  The older one is currently a Hussite church.

 Interior of the 1268 Gothic style 'Rear Synagogue' with painted decorations.

 

Třebíč street scenes

 

The Jewish cemetery in Třebíč (see photos) is in very good shape, especially considering what happened to most cemeteries in Eastern Europe, and well maintained. 

Icy conditions prevented us from exploring the oldest part of the long, narrow cemetery.

Some of the 19th and 20th-century stones are large and elaborate.

 

Austria

Vienna

As the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there are a lot of royal things here.  We saw many of them --- on to the Jewish stuff.

The Stattemple (1826), a few blocks from our hotel, was the only one of Vienna's four dozen major synagogues to survive Kristallnacht.   By royal decree at the time it was built, synagogues had to have plain exteriors.

We attended services here the evening before we left and the following morning.

There are various reasons given as to why it survived.  The most logical to me is that it is very close to St. Rupert's Church, Vienna's oldest, and a fire might spread. 

The Holocaust Memorial on JudenPlatz was designed to resemble a bookcase with the spines inward to represent the unfinished lives.

 When excavating JudenPlatz for the memorial, the foundation of the 14th-century synagogue was discovered. 

In 1421, on the charge of 'host desecration,' the Jewish community was taken outside the Viennese walls and burned alive.  Their property was given to the royal favorites and all debts owed to the Jews were annulled.

The synagogue was torn down and its stones used in the construction of Vienna's university.

The foundations (above right) can be seen in the museum which takes one under the plaza.



The Jewish Museum of Vienna has a collection of items similar to what one can see in NYC, but a lot more.  The ritual and decorative items had been looted from synagogues and individuals by the Nazis.

There are descriptions of the holidays and displays of holiday paraphernalia.  There are also interesting special exhibits.

These four columns were built as a monument to the hundreds of destroyed or severely damaged synagogues and prayer rooms of Vienna. Jews left Vienna and did not return.  But the community continues to regrow as Jews relocate to Vienna.  Everyone is from somewhere else or their parents were.

Raphael closed his shop and took us to see his nearby Bucharian synagogue (l) and the adjacent Georgian synagogue on the ground floor of an apartment house.




These synagogues were founded about 20 years ago.

Below is the new Ashkenazi synagogue, adjacent to the new Jewish Center.

There are other Jewish things to see in Vienna, but we left.  But not before Sarah got me to go to the opera, something I am sure the prosperous and educated Jews of Vienna did.



At least our standing room was only a little more expensive than a seat in the nearby Opera Toilet (Mit Musik).

This part of a four-piece "Monument against War and Fascism" has a Jewish theme:
:  Showing one of the ways Jews were debased in Austria under the Nazis:
 Being required to scrub the streets with brushes. 
It is near the Opera House

"The Transport"  

A memorial appropriately placed at the railroad station.  
It was our last sight of Vienna before heading to Budapest.

Hungary

Budapest

Budapest had the greatest amount of interesting things to see from spas, to royal buildings to civic structures, including an Arte Nouveau zoo, Roman ruins and the fanciest cafe in the world.  You can see all of that on google.  You can get my stuff on google, too, but it won't have that personal touch.

25% of Budapest's pre-war population was Jewish.  Therefore, it is not surprising that The Great Synagogue of Budapest is the largest synagogue in Europe.  It is still in use.

Also on the grounds of the Great Synagogue:

The Hero's Synagogue (left), dedicated to those who fought for Hungary during WW I; It is used for services in the winter because it is too expensive to heat the Great Synagogue.  

In the plaza behind the synagogue is the Holocaust Memorial Tree (also left).

'Leaves' with names (right) 

Theodore Herzl was born in a house which was demolished to enlarge the synagogue grounds.

 A Jewish tombstone from Roman Hungary.

Jews were in Hungary before the Magyars.  

Budapest has the largest Roman ruin outside of Rome.

We saw it; it looks good in the snow.

 Budapest has an active Jewish community with kosher shops and restaurants.  We didn't have to visit every synagogue, but we saw some of them.

 

The ghetto wall (above) was torn down in 2006 but rebuilt as a memorial.  It is in the backyard of a locked apartment complex.  Someone was coming out when we got there, so we went in; we couldn't find the electronic gate release so had to wait for someone to let us out.

The  heart of Jewish life in Budapest took place in this corridor connecting six apartment complexes and their courtyards.  Active shops lined the corridors, some are coming back.


A memorial to saving a life.

 Something I had not seen before:  This apartment complex in Buda was designed as a Jewish community.  The building and railings have Jewish symbols.  A synagogue fills the courtyard.  Few Jews live there today.  Good photos in the link below.

 The Frankel Synagogue

The Holocaust Memorial Center, built by the Hungarian Government, has many moving displays of the plight of Jews and Roma / Sinti in Hungary during WW II.

 A wall of names of Hungarian Jews murdered by the Nazis and the Arrow Cross, the fascist group which took over in 1944 after the Nazis left.

Another museum, The House of Terror, augments the story.  Housed in the former headquarters of the Gestapo, this museum compares the Nazis, Arrow Cross and Soviet secret police. 

 Torture and prison cells are in the basement.  

It is horrendous and eerie.

Shoes on the Danube Promenade:

To save the cost of burial, the Arrow Cross lined Jews up on the waterfront and shot them to fall into the Danube after requiring them to remove their shoes.

Almost half of the Jews murdered in Auschwitz were Hungarian.


Szentendre

On the light rail north of Budapest, past the Roman ruin, is the town of Szentendre.  It was settled by waves of Slavs coming to the Hapsburg Empire for religious freedom.  After leaving the elaborately decorated Serbian Bishop's church, we were surprised to find one of the smallest synagogues we've seen just around the corner.  It is said to be the smallest synagogue in the world.  The courtyard has a monument to the Szentendre Jews lost in the Holocaust.  A Jewish community existed in Szentendre from 1828 to 1944.  The building is a museum.

 

Poland

Half of the Jews murdered during the Holocaust were from Poland.  Only 10% of Poland's Jews survived the war and the murders of the returning survivors by the Polish civilians.  Sarah's parents were born in Poland, not far from Kraków.  After surviving the war, they first met in Kraków where Jews had congregated in a usually fruitless attempt to find missing relatives among the survivors and avoiding the dangers that lurked in the small towns where law-enforcement was lax and antisemitism high.  

When large numbers of a town or village's citizens were murdered or displaced by the Nazis, the local residents got furnished homes for free.   Why give that up for some returning Jew.  Who would notice if he disappeared?  Numerous incidents have been recorded.

Sarah's parents, like most surviving Polish Jews, emigrated.

There are six thousand Poles who have been honored by the Polish government and Yad VaShem for their role in saving Jews.   Sarah's parents were among the fortunate few who were saved by the efforts of the 'Righteous Among the Nations.'

Kraków

The old part of Kraków is very picturesque with a centuries-old market square and Renaissance buildings.  But there is a darker side to Kraków and in its museums.  Many Poles also suffered during Nazi rule.  When he was a young man, Karol Józef Wojtyła (the future Pope John Paul II) was a slave laborer in the quarry south of town which  became part of the Płaszów Concentration Camp.

 

The #3 trolley ran through the Kraków Ghetto.  

The trolley doors did not open there, 

but the people on the tram could see what was going on.

A few threw food.

 

This fortress-style synagogue from the 15th century is the oldest surviving synagogue in Poland.

 "The synagogues of Kraków are an outstanding collection of monuments of Jewish sacred architecture unmatched anywhere in Poland. The seven main synagogues of the Jewish District of Kazimierz constitute the largest such complex in Europe next to Prague." [Wikipedia]  

Photos of the Kraków synagogues.

 We visited the main Kraków Jewish cemetery.  Nothing particularly unusual.  It is still in use.

Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist, opened a factory near the Płaszów Concentration Camp to have cheap labor for his enamel works.  He paid the German government 4 marks a day for women workers and 5 for men.  The workers got a bowl of thin soup.  [The plan was to get the most work for the least amount of food, then replace the worker when he died.]

After seeing the conditions of the workers, Schindler had a change of heart, provided them with more food and played a role in keeping his workers out of the death camps.

The factory is now a museum displaying the conditions in Kraków under Nazi rule:  1939 - 1945.

A monument in Schindler's office displays the names of the 1200 men and women who were on 'Schindler's List' on the circular inside wall.

Sarah was rendered speechless when she saw her father's name on the monument wall; she ran and pulled me in from another room and pointed.    

As her father died when she was a teen, almost two decades before the movie came out and he rarely mentioned the war years to his young daughter, Sarah had wondered how her father was able to survive for several years in a labor camp where one was considered fortunate to survive more than four weeks.  Her father had just considered himself to have been a slave-laborer and never realized how fortunate he was considering the circumstances.

Another museum is in the former Gestapo headquarters.  There are chilling reminders of what went on in  Kraków during the war and under Soviet occupation.

 Kraków Ghetto Monument.  It was on this square that ghetto residents were ordered to bring their belongings before being sent to the Płaszów Concentration Camp.

Parents were required to leave their children behind being told that the children would be sent in a later transport.   The museum description (photo above) describes some of what happened.  Ghetto photos.

 

 

A section of the ghetto wall

  Płaszów Concentration Camp remnants and the Płaszów monument.  The Płaszów Concentration Camp was replicated on-site for the film Schindler's List.  They used the actual quarry.

Train line from the concentration camp to Auschwitz.  It carried thousands to their deaths.  All women with children arriving from Hungary were brought directly to this station and sent to their deaths.  The line is still in use.

The construction of the camp involved the destruction of two Jewish cemeteries.  The tombstones were used to pave the roads.

Oświęcim

The town of Oświęcim is best known today by its German name:  Auschwitz.  It is a day-trip from Kraków by bus or train.  We took the bus because it drops people off at the Auschwitz gate.

 More than a million people lost their lives here, 90% of them Jewish.

Also day trips from Kraków

We visited the town where Sarah's father was born and the village of her mother, places where the Jewish population had been about 25%; none are left. 

In the village where Sarah's mother was born, all that remains of the synagogue is a wall across a vacant lot.  The synagogue was destroyed after the war by the village residents who also threatened Sarah's mother when she returned to retrieve her possessions.  

Here as elsewhere, the former homes of the Jews are occupied by squatters.  You can tell which buildings they are by their poorly maintained condition; why spend money to fix up something when a former owner or a descendent may return and claim it?  

The location of the cemetery is unknown; the stones were removed for building material.

What does remain is the barn in which Sarah's mother was hidden for several years and two of the family members who helped save her from the Nazis.  

Sarah was very pleased to have had the opportunity to meet with them and their family.

The first-time meeting of Sarah and a rescuer of her mother.



The family has been recognized by Yad VaShem and their story appears as part of a book.

The synagogue in the town where Sarah's father was born remains, but as a department store.   The property is owned by the Jewish Community of Krakow.  No Jews remain.

 

The cemetery, destroyed by the Nazis, was refurbished in the 1990s by a private charitable foundation.  The remaining tombstones were up-righted and broken ones, which could not be repaired, were assembled into two small monuments.   

.

Sarah was unable to locate the grave of the grandmother, after whom she is named, because the tombstones lack surnames and are not in the correct positions; she was relieved to see that the cemetery in which her ancestors are buried has been restored.  Although most of the tombstones were looted and those that are left are not where they belong, at least it looks like a maintained cemetery.

Sarah lit a candle at the semi-circular monument.

Warsaw

Chopin's heart is in a column in Sacred Heart Church here and Kościuszko's heart is in an urn in the Royal Chapel.  Those photos are for another post.  90% of Warsaw was blown up by the retreating Nazis and almost all of the Warsaw Ghetto was leveled.  Most of what we saw was built since the end of the war, much using old styles. It is not surprising that I have fewer photos from Warsaw than from any other city.

 
The cemetery in Warsaw is centuries old, so it has old tombstones; nothing unusual here.  It does, however, have the tombs of some famous Jewish sages which are visited by followers.

 The Warsaw Ghetto

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos of Europe. 

 







Markers showing the location of the ghetto wall.

 The only surviving segment of the ghetto wall is in a private (locked) courtyard.
When he saw me taking a photo through the fence, the superintendent invited us in. 

 Umschlagplatz

 This monument marks the place where 

300,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto 

 left on the trains to various death camps.

The Great Synagogue of Warsaw was blown up by the Nazis when they razed the ghetto.  

A modern skyscraper stands on the site.

 The final resting place of more than one hundred fighters from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  The uprising was a blow to the Germans as the virtually unarmed Jews held off the Nazis for longer than the Polish army had.  This is what is left of their basement headquarters.

Monument to the Heros of Battle for the Warsaw Ghetto

The Nożyk Synagogue (1902) is still in use. 
It is the only surviving pre-war synagogue in Warsaw.

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews is scheduled to open in April on the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  There are 1,000 years worth of history to display.  One of its eight permanent halls features the Holocaust.  VIDEO

To see the general part of our trip, Eastern Europe, click here.