Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SincethefallofCommunismin1989Prague'soldJewishghetto,orJosefov,hasbecome
one of the city's top sights - year-round the streets are thronged with tourists trekking
from one synagogue to another on self-guided tours. But the synagogues, the town hall
and the medieval cemetery are but scraps of what once existed here. At the end of the
nineteenthcentury,aperiodofgreateconomicgrowthfortheHabsburgEmpire,itwas
decidedthatPragueshouldbeturnedintoabeautifulbourgeoiscity,modelledonParis.
Whatyouseetodayaretheremnantsoftheghettofollowingtheconsequent asanace or
“sanitization”, when Josefov's notoriously malodorous backstreets and alleyways were
replaced with block after block of luxurious five-storey Art Nouveau mansions.
In any other European city occupied by the Nazis in World War II, what little that was left
of the old ghetto would have been demolished. But, although thousands of Prague's Jews
weretransportedtothenewghettoinTerezínandeventually toAuschwitz,thePragueghetto
was preserved under the Nazis in order to provide a record of the communities they had des-
troyed. By this grotesque twist of fate, Jewish artefacts from Czechoslovakia and beyond
weregatheredhere,andnowmakeuponeoftherichestcollectionsofJudaicainEurope,and
one of the most fascinating sights in Prague.
Geographically, Josefov lies within the Staré Město, to the northwest of Staroměstské
náměstí, between the main square and the river. The warren-like street plan of the old ghetto
has long since disappeared, and through the heart of Josefov the ultimate bourgeois avenue,
Pařížská ,nowruns,ariotofturn-of-the-twentieth-century sculpturing,spikesandturrets,its
groundfloorpremisesoccupiedbyupmarketshops.IfJosefovcanstillbesaidtohaveamain
street,it'sreallytheparallelstreetof Maiselova ,namedafterthecommunity'ssixteenth-cen-
tury leader. The sheer volume of tourists - more than a million a year - that visit Josefov has
brought with it the inevitable rash of souvenir stalls, flogging dubious “Jewish” souvenirs,
and, it has to be said, the whole area is now something of a tourist trap. Yet to skip this part
of the old town is to miss out on an entire slice of the city's cultural history.
Also included in this chapter are the sights around náměstí Jana Palacha , adjacent to, but
strictly speaking outside, the Jewish quarter, most notably the city's excellent Museum of
Decorative Arts (UPM).
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