The Auschwitz Album

This exhibition features copies of all of the almost 200 photographs from the Auschwitz Album, a unique document from 1944 that depicts the systematic liquidation of Europe's Jews.
 
The Auschwitz Album is a unique set of photographs that documents the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in the spring of 1944. Apart from an album that shows the camp being built in 1942–1943 and three photographs that were taken secretly by inmates, there is no other authentic pictorial document that captures life in Auschwitz. Historians rightly consider the Auschwitz Album to be one of the most important testimonies on the fate of the millions who were murdered.
 
The Auschwitz Album documents the arrival, selection and processing of the so-called “Hungarian Transports” that came to Auschwitz-Birkenau at the end of May or the start of June 1944. According to some sources, the photographs were taken on a single day; according to others, over a period of several weeks. Many of the trains came from Berehove, Mukachevo and Uzhhorod in Carpathian Ruthenia, a former part of Czechoslovakia that was ceded to Hungary in November 1938, just as the Sudetenland had been ceded to Germany under the Munich Agreement. The rest of Carpathian Ruthenia was annexed by Hungary on 18 March 1939, three days after the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia by the German army. As is evident from the recorded testimonies of survivors, many of the deportees in the photographs spoke Yiddish at home. Nonetheless, they considered themselves to be Czechoslovakians.
 
Unlike the previous deportation trains, the Hungarian transports arriving at Auschwitz went directly into the Birkenau camp – on a newly built track that was completed in May 1944. The railway track was extended in order to speed up the selection process, so that the prisoners could be quickly divided into those capable of work and those to be exterminated immediately, and to make the sorting of their belongings more effective. Most of those deemed fit to work were soon taken to forced labour camps in the German Reich, so that they could be used by the German military industry, which was at risk of air raids. The others – mostly the elderly and women with children – were immediately sent to the gas chambers upon arrival. More than a million European Jews perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau, including at least 75,000 from Carpathian Ruthenia. More than a quarter of a million Jews from the former Czechoslovakia were murdered by the Nazis.
 
 The exhibition also describes how the album was created, how it was found by the Auschwitz survivor Lili Jacob and what happened to it after the war. A major role in its post-war fate was played by the Czech capital city and the Jewish Museum in Prague, where in 1947 copies were made of the photographs in the album. The original album was donated to Yad Vashem in 1980. Thanks to the Jewish Museum, other copies of the photographs were sent to several other European museums during the 1950s and 1960s.
 
The exhibition also presents new findings – previously unpublished – about the album and about Lily Jacob. Above all, it draws attention to the fact that although the album is usually talked about in connection with the transports of Hungarian Jews, the photographs actually depict citizens of pre-war Czechoslovakia. Lili Jacob herself – who found the album in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp after the liberation –was a Czechoslovak citizen, spoke Czech fluently and lived in what was then Czechoslovakia for three years after the war. The money that Lily Jacob received in 1947 from the then State Jewish Museum – for allowing it to make copies of images from the album – enabled her to move with her husband and first-born daughter to the United States in 1948, where they began a new life. The actual photographs were first published in two Czechoslovak books from 1949 and 1956 (The Tragedy of the Jews of Slovakia and The Death Factory). The Auschwitz Album also played an important role as supporting evidence in war crime trials in Germany and Israel.
 
TECHNICAL PARAMETERS
188 photographic prints on aluminium mounts for wall installation (width: 25 cm, height: 30 cm)
2 shipping crates (80 x 60 x 41 cm, weight: 50 kg each)
Accompanying texts available in not-ready-to-use format in MSWord (lender to produce their own accompanying exhibition panels)
 
CONTACT
photoarchive@jewishmuseum.cz

Mazal tov – Good luck

This exhibition focuses on the course and attributes of the traditional wedding ceremony of Ashkenazi Jews. The photographs, garments, rings, contracts and many other items on display provide an overall picture of one of the most important events in the life cycle of every individual and show how the wedding has been celebrated by the Jewish community in the past and present. The exhibition was first shown in 2006 at the Jewish Museum’s Robert Guttmann Gallery in Prague. (Curator: Dana Veselská)
Total insurance value of the exhibits: approx. EUR 1 million

May God Let Him Grow: A Child’s Birth in the Culture and Customs of Bohemian and Moravian Jews

The Second Life of Czech Torahs – Czech Torah scrolls and binders in the Jewish Museum in Prague and the Memorial Scrolls Centre in London

In the Bible, what is meant by the term ‘book’ is actually a scroll. Only in this context does Isaiah’s dictum “the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll” make sense. In the Jewish milieu, the scroll was retained as the standard book form for a long time after the codex – the bound book invented by the Romans – became widespread.

The Torah scroll (sefer Torah) is a strip of parchment that is prepared from the skin of a kosher animal. It is many metres in length and has two wooden rollers (atzei hayyim, “trees of life”) at each end. Considered to be holy, both the text and the scroll itself have a unique position within Judaism. In order to be suitable for reading in the synagogue, the Torah scroll must be written in Hebrew square script with permanent ink by a professional scribe (sofer). The scroll may have no textual errors and the letters must be legible. Certain errors and imperfections may be corrected by the scribe, but if there is extensive damage the parchment must be kept out of use.

In time, the interior arrangement of the synagogue was adapted to conform with the public reading of the Torah scroll during the worship service; notably, the Holy Ark (aron ha-kodesh) – a cabinet for the scrolls – and a reading desk were installed. Between the columns of the Ark is a lockable space for storing the Torah scrolls, along with all its appurtenances. The doors of the Ark are covered from the outside by a parokhet – a curtain that separates the holiest place of the Ark from the rest of the synagogue.
In order to fulfil the requirement that the entire congregation should hear as clearly as possible the text that is read from the Torah scroll, the parchment (with all its adornments) is ceremoniously carried to the raised platform in the centre. The reading desk is oriented towards the east and is covered with a special textile whose purpose is to protect the unrolled scroll from damage.

The relevant portion of the Torah is read as part of the synagogue liturgy during services on Mondays and Thursdays, during the morning and afternoon services on the Shabbat and during the morning services on holidays. This is a complex ceremony governed by regulations and ritual customs, which requires the presence of a minyan, a group of ten adult males. The actual reading is performed by a baal kriya, a specialist who is well-versed in recitation (cantillation).

After the reading of the weekly portion, the scroll is once again ceremoniously given its adornments. A binder is wrapped around the scroll to prevent it from unrolling. This is a narrow band of fabric, several metres in length. Across the entire length of the binder, there is usually a characterisitc dedicatory inscription, which states the name of the child, the date (and sometimes place) of birth and the names of the parents, and includes the standard benediction: May the Lord grant him to raise him to the Torah, to the wedding canopy and to good deeds.

After the parchment has been secured by the binder, the scroll is covered with a textile – the Torah mantle. The scroll is then decorated with silver ornaments. The Torah shield and the Torah pointer (yad) hang on a chain at the front of the scroll. The pointer is a rod that is often decorated and always shaped at the end like a hand with an outstretched index finger; it is used to indicate the text of the Torah that is to be read.

Torah finials – known as rimmonim (“pomegranates”) because of their shape – are placed on the protruding ends of the rollers. On ceremonial occasions, the scroll is adorned with a silver crown, instead of finials. The adorned scroll is then ceremonially carried back to the Holy Ark.

Before the Second World War, very few Torah scrolls appeared in museum collections in Bohemia and Moravia. Considering how expensive it was to make, the Torah scroll was certainly not an item that a congregation would voluntarily or gladly have given away to a museum collection. Indeed, the number of Torah scrolls owned by a particular community reflected its economic and social standing. In the collections of pre-war Jewish museums, the Torah scroll appeared more frequently in the form of a miniature souvenir.

The situation regarding the occurrence of Torah scrolls in the collections of the Jewish Museum in Prague drastically changed in May 1942. The Nazi authority dealing with the Jewish question in Prague – the Central Office for Jewish Emigration – ordered the Jewish communities in the Protectorate (i.e., the historical lands of Bohemia and Moravia, not including the Sudeten border areas) to send all their liturgical objects, books and archive records to the newly established Central Jewish Museum in Prague. The impetus for founding this museum came from Prague Jewish community employees who sought to protect the properties of those who had been deported to concentration camps. They used the pre-war Prague Jewish museum collection as a starting point for the initiative. Read more about the museum's history: www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/info/about-us/history-of-the-museum/

Almost 1,800 Torah scrolls became part of the collections of the Jewish Museum in Prague during the Second World War. A number of Jewish congregations were re-established in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia after the war; these were provided with the necessary liturgical items, including Torah scrolls, by the Jewish Museum in Prague. The post-war years and, in particular, the subsequent period under the Communist regime, however, brought rapid change, as a result of which many of the revived congregations were again disbanded. Many of the liturgical items that had been loaned were subsequently returned to Jewish Museum in Prague.

A major impact on the Jewish Museum’s existence occurred in 1950, when it was put under state control. It was moved out of its headquarters and allotted several other buildings, most of which required renovation and repairs. A synagogue in the Prague district of Michle, which the State Jewish Museum acquired in the autumn of 1955, was chosen as a site for the storage of its collection of scrolls. The then museum director, Hana Volavková, decided to set up a museum of scrolls, which were gradually deposited there in 1956-59. This Antique-style library-cum-repository was to have been definitively completed at the beginning of the 1960s, but events took another turn.

Abroad, there was considerable interest in the Jewish Museum in Prague and its collections. Soon after the Second World War, the museum was contacted by people wishing to buy items from its collection. Hana Volavková successfully resisted such offers, pointing to the immense value of the relics of the Bohemian and Moravian victims of the Shoah. At the beginning of the 1960s, however, the Czechoslovak Communist regime undertook several initial attempts to sell liturgical items from Jewish Museum to interested parties abroad. Encouraged by its success, it then began a systematic search, via the state-owned Artia corporation, for a market for multiple copies of items in the museum’s collections.
Torah scrolls became vulnerable items. Most of them had no unique marks or features and the Jewish Museum had a large number that could not be exhibited. As a consequence, in 1963, once a suitable purchaser had been found, the museum staff were compelled to provide about 1,500 Torah scrolls from the museum’s collections for sale. The entire set was sold for a pre-arranged price, which was paid not by the person who mediated the transaction – the art dealer Eric Estorick – but by an anonymous philanthropist. In January 1964, after the agreed-upon amount had been paid, the Torah scrolls in Prague were wrapped and shipped to London. As part of the agreement between the Czechoslovak state and the new owner, the Torah scrolls were not allowed to become commercial items.

The shipment of this immense amount of important Jewish ritual items attracted great attention in London. The scrolls found refuge at Kent House, the headquarters of the recently established Jewish congregation at Westminster, of which the above mentioned philanthropist – the London lawyer and businessman Ralph Yablon – was a member. The scrolls were stored there while it was being decided how best to make use of them. Two possible options were considered: the scrolls that were in good condition or were repairable could be loaned for liturgical uses while those that were not repairable could be provided for commemorative purposes. In 1965, and for the next almost 40 years, the core of all activities relating to the care, and later distribution, of the Torah scrolls was overseen by Ruth Shaffer. The distribution of Torah scrolls entailed a number of difficulties, even though clearly defined rules had been laid down: the items were to be provided on permanent loan, not to private individuals but to congregations that were in need of them. Requests were dealt with on an individual basis and were often turned down for various reasons – as, for example, when it was suspected that the interested party had commercial designs on a Torah scroll.

The vast majority of usable Torah scrolls from Bohemia and Moravia have now been distributed to Jewish congregations, Shoah memorials, museums and libraries across the world. The rest of the scrolls are part of a collection in a small museum at Kent House which commemorates the fate of the scrolls and the history of the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia. The scrolls that the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust has loaned to congregations are being looked after with great care. These congregations realise the value of the memory of every individual scroll and are developing a number of projects that promote knowledge of the life of the Jewish community in Bohemia and Moravia.

Representatives of these congregations often contact the Jewish Museum in Prague. They are interested in the fate of specific individuals who lived in the Jewish community from which their scroll was shipped to the museum during the war, and in the history of these communities and in other related liturgical items and archive materials in the museum’s collections. Such interest has led to the publication of books on the fate of Czech Jewish communities, educational programmes and exhibitions. The Jewish Museum in Prague is glad to become involved in all such projects and appreciates all who wish to find out about the original owners of the Torah scrolls. For these congregations are building a bridge between the past, present and future and are helping to preserve a historical memory of events that must never be forgotten.

Adolf Kohn – Painter of the Prague Ghetto

Adolf Kohn was born on 10 March 1868, a year after the Jews in the Habsburg Empire had been granted full equality. He stemmed from a respected Prague family; his father, Bernard, served as cantor at the Pinkas Synagogue and his elder brother, Emil Klement, was a celebrated professor of medicine at Prague University. His mother, Rozálie (née Stern), was born in the village of Kovanic in the Poděbrady region, not far from Prague. In view of his father’s position, it is likely that the family was already living in or near the Jewish Town (Josefov) when he was born. This is where Kohn spent his childhood and youth, exploring all the alleyways, yards and hidden corners of the Prague ghetto.

Kohn attended the Josefov Jewish School (then located in Břehová Street), and later on went to the Old Town high school at the Kinský Palace – Franz Kafka was a pupil here fifteen years later. Following on from his elder brother, Kohn began to study medicine at Prague University but left the course after just a few terms and changed his focus to music, studying with the famous concert maestro Mořic Wallerstein. Kohn then worked as an organist for many years, mainly in the Maisel Synagogue where he also served as choirmaster. He also played the organ in other synagogues and churches in Prague.

In August 1897, Kohn married Theresie Stein (1865-1936), a native of Nymburk . It was at this time that he witnessed the beginning of the reconstruction of the Prague ghetto, as well as the protests that were held by public figures from the world of Czech culture against the destruction of its cultural and historic sites. He may also have seen the famous master painters Jansa, Minařík and Slavíček with their pupils at work in the picturesque nooks of the ghetto. Josefov inhabitants were even more curious about the mysterious exploits of photographers such as Friedrich, Eckert and k íženecký, who, having meticulously adjusted their tripods and box cameras, would take shots of the ghetto while concealed under black cloaks. Another character Kohn would no doubt have bumped into was Zikmund Reach, the photographer and collector whose second-hand bookshop in Skořepka Street became a sanctuary for all those who knew and loved Old Prague.

The changes that were brought about by the rapid modernization of the city at the turn of the 20th century created widespread public interest in Old Prague. The Brown brothers organized protests against the planned reconstruction of Josefov and the Club for Old Prague was established soon later. It was around this time that Kohn, without any particular technical experience, set about painting his small pictures of the streets, houses and squares of the Jewish Town in an attempt to preserve their form and, in so doing, to prevent them from falling into oblivion. Apparently, he went round houses, shops and restaurants peddling his pictures for any price he could get. He hardly ever dated his works, but he often jotted down the name of the street or house on the back . As some of his pictures depict horse-drawn trams and gas lamps, it is clear that the earliest works were made before 1900. These paintings appear to have been executed with more skill and care than his later works. He continued in his artistic endeavours and, with the help of old photographs and postcards, produced hundreds of paintings of the Prague ghetto. The most valuable ones, of course, are those that depict places which are no longer to be found anywhere else and which were made during the course of the reconstruction of the ghetto.

In contrast to the work of professional artists from the end of the 19th century, who were inspired by the mysterious and somewhat gloomy atmosphere of the former ghetto, Kohn’s pictures provide a completely different view of the Jewish Town. Details of houses – windows, shop-signs, pantile roofs, dormers – goods unloaded in front of shops and street pavements were all meticulously presented in clear compositions and light pastel colours. The unmistakable atmosphere of the Jewish Town is captured in pictures of shady areas in deserted streets with narrow strips of blue sky hovering above the roofs and reflected in the top windows of houses. The unusual lighting and piercing shadows on the facades of houses in empty streets create a feeling of unsettling timelessness and nostalgia. Kohn’s work was also marked by an apparent naivety in the depiction of figurative motifs. Whenever figures appear in his street scenes, they are caught in a motionless and unnatural state, which is perhaps why they all convey the impression of loneliness.

Robert Guttmann – Painter and Traveller of Prague

Vavro Oravec – A Painter of Soul

Long-lost Faces – Recollections of Holocaust Victims in Documents and Photographs

Some of the donors found out more detailed information about the fate of their family and friends while visiting the Museum, where they had the opportunity to access a computer index with basic personal data on the victims and information on their deportation to Terezín and further east. Many faces in photographs were identified only on the basis of collating information from the database, documents and the reminiscences of donors. In the course of this search, donors heard, often for the first time, about certain lesser-known concentration camps, ghettos and extermination centres in eastern Poland, the Baltic States and Belarus

In this way we managed to bring together not only documents of an official nature, such as public notices, bulletins and forms from the period of the Nazi occupation, but also a wide range of personal items – portraits, family and school photographs, personal documents, birth and wedding certificates, reports, identification cards, passports and membership cards, as well as official and illegal correspondence from home, Terezín and other Nazi camps and ghettos. Valuable sources for illustrating the everyday life of Jewish inmates also include diaries, scrapbooks, poems and personal narratives. There is also a completely separate group of memorial objects.

All these documents are being stored in the Holocaust department where they will be available for researchers and historians and, gradually, will also be used in the course of other visits.

The exhibition “Long-lost Faces” acquaints the public only with a fraction of what has been brought together as part of the project. The exhibition curators have tried to create a cross-section that will present as well as possible the variety of the material and, at the same time, recall the life stories of people who, until the onset of persecution, lived ordinary family lives, enjoyed friendships, love and pleasure, but also had everyday worries, studied, worked, and had good times in general… Without reason, their fates were severed and, in many cases, their children were not allowed to reach adulthood.

Our respect and warm thanks go to all those who have not forgotten and who do not want to forget about their murdered Jewish relatives, friends and neighbours and who deserve praise for gathering together these valuable documents.