Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
money. The synagogue's interior is decorated Neo-Gothic. In
World War II, it served as a warehouse for the accumulated trea-
sures of decimated Jewish communities that Hitler planned to
use for his “Museum of the Extinct Jewish Race.” The one-room
exhibit shows a thousand years of Jewish history in Bohemia and
Moravia. Well-explained in English, topics include the origin of
the Star of David, Jewish mysticism, the history of discrimination,
and the creation of Prague's ghetto. Notice the eastern wall, with
the Holy Ark containing the scroll of the Torah. The central case
shows the silver ornamental Torah crowns that capped the scroll.
Spanish Synagogue (Španělská Synagóga)
Displays of Jewish history through the 18th, 19th, and tumultuous
20th centuries continue in this ornate, Moorish-style synagogue
built in the 1800s. The upstairs is particularly intriguing, with
circa-1900 photos of Josefov, an exhibit on the fascinating story
of this museum and its relationship with the Nazi regime, and life
in Terezín. The Winter Synagogue (also upstairs) shows a trove of
silver worshipping aids gathered from countryside Jewish neigh-
borhoods that were depopulated in the early 1940s, thus giving a
sense of what the Nazis stockpiled.
