Holocaust Torah Scroll
Temple Beth Jacob’s Holocaust Torah Scroll
Temple Beth Jacob’s Sefer Torah is number 894. It came from the towns of Kolin-Nymburk. It was written in the year 1800. Temple Beth Jacob received the scroll in January of 1993.
About Kolin-Nymburk: Prior to World War I, Czechoslovakia had approximately 93,000 Jews, and of them, 19,000 lived in Prague. By the beginning of World War II, the population had grown to approximately 117,550. Kolin had about 3,500 Jews – Nymburk was a smaller town on the outskirts of Kolin. There was one synagogue and a Jewish bakery in Kolin. In 1939, the rabbi of the communities gathered the Jews, collected millions of Czech kroner and petitioned the French, Spanish, Belgian and Dutch governments to allow Jews to settle in their “dark colonies,” without any expenses to the colonial powers. These Jews were mostly middle class merchants, with some cattle traders and some farmers. They started to learn trades under the rabbi’s guidance, which they hoped they would use in the colonies. The rabbi had extensive correspondence with these governments and their representatives. He presented them with gifts and gave financial guarantees that the Jews would be of no burden to the colonial powers. Negotiations dragged on, until it was too late. Rabbi Richard Feder returned from concentration camp and wrote a book in 1947 entitled Zidovska Tragie (Jewish Tragedy), the first book on Holocaust. He listed all the Kolin and Nymburk Jews who belonged to the Jewish community who perished in concentration camps. Nymburk had a Jewish population of 2,068 before the War. They were all deported to Terezin on three transports from Kolin. Only 134 survived.
About Scroll 894: The scroll is not kosher – meaning it is not fit for regular use. It appears to have fire and water damage beyond repair. Still, Temple Beth Jacob honors and uses the scroll in a few settings. First, our confirmands read from this scroll each year at Confirmation to honor those who lives were lost and did not live to become Jewish adults. Second, we include the scroll in our annual community-wide Holocaust remembrance service. Third, upon special request and for compelling reasons, a bar or bat mitzvah student who wishes to read from the Holocaust scroll may do so when being called to the Torah as a bar or bat mitzvah.
The Nazis and the Czech Jews: The Demise of the Jewish Communities
Jews had lived in Bohemia and Moravia for more than a thousand years. Over that time a rich Jewish culture developed, centered on Prague and spread across a large number of communities throughout the country. When the Munich Agreement was signed on 29 September 1938, Britain and France agreed to Hitler’s demand to be given the German speaking border regions of Czechoslovakia, and the Germans marched in. The Jews from about sixty congregations in the prosperous industrial and commercial towns in the Sudetenland had two or three days to flee to the interior, which was still a free and sovereign country. They left behind their synagogues, which were in German hands in time for the destruction of the Pogrom of November 1938, when synagogues across the expanded Germany, which now included the Sudetenland, were burned or vandalized and looted. In almost every case the ritual treasures of these Sudetenland synagogues were destroyed or lost.
In the remainder of Czechoslovakia, the synagogues and their swollen congregations were safe for the time being, and there was no program of destruction, even when the Germans invaded the rest of the country in March 1939. In 1940, the congregations were closed down, but the Jewish community administration was used by the Germans to execute their stream of decrees and instructions. In 1941 the first deportations started and the mass deportations of the Jews took place throughout 1942 and into January 1943. The Nazis decided to liquidate the communal and private Jewish property in the towns, including the contents of the synagogues. In 1942, Dr. Stein of the Juedische Kultusgemeinde in Prague wrote to all Jewish communities, instructing them to send the contents of their synagogues to the Jewish Museum in Prague. Thus the Torah Scrolls, gold and silver and ritual textiles were sent, along with thousands of books. The remaining Jews were deported in 1943 and 1944, but quite a number survived.
The Saving of the Judaica – The inventory of the Prague Jewish Museum expanded by fourteen times as a result, and a large number of Jews were put to work by the Germans to sort, catalog and put into storage all the items that had come from over one hundred congregations in Bohemia and Moravia. It needed over forty warehouses; many of them deserted Prague synagogues, to store all these treasures. When the task was eventually completed, the Jews who had been put to this work were themselves deported to the Terezin concentration camp and death. There were few survivors.
It was once accepted that the accumulation of this vast hoard of Judaica was intended by the Nazis to become their museum to the extinct Jewish race. There is, however, no evidence that any such museum was ever planned. The Prague Jewish Museum had been in existence since 1906, and was not created in order to house the Judaica collected in 1942. In 2012, the Prague Jewish Museum published “Ark of Memory” by Magda Veselska, a history of the museum that includes a clear explanation of how it was the Jews of Prague that worked before, during and after the war to protect a legacy that was threatened with destruction. After the defeat of Germany, a free and independent Czechoslovakia emerged, but it was a country largely without Jews. Most of the surviving Jews in Prague and the rest of Bohemia and Moravia were from Slovakia and further east from Subcarpathian Ruthenia. Prague, which had had a Jewish population of 54,000 in 1940, was reduced to under 8,000 by 1947, and many of these were to leave.
Czechoslovakia and the Communists –On 27 February 1948, after less than three years of post war freedom, the Communists staged a coup and took over the government of Czechoslovakia. The Prague Jewish Museum came under government control, and was staffed mainly by non-Jewish curators. In 1958, the 18th century Michle Synagogue became the warehouse which housed hundreds of Torah Scrolls from the large Prague Jewish community and what was left from the smaller communities of Bohemia and Moravia. The collection did not include scrolls from Slovakia, which the Germans had put under a separate administration. The Scrolls were left totally neglected.
The Communists Sale of the Scrolls – Eric Estorick, an American living in London, was an art dealer who paid many visits to Prague in the early 1960’s. He got to know many Prague artists, whose work he exhibited at his Grosvenor Gallery. Being a frequent visitor to Prague, he came to the attention of the authorities. He was approached by officials from Artia, the state corporation that had responsibility for trade in works of art, and was asked if he would be interested in buying some Torah Scrolls. Unknown to him, the Israelis had been approached previously with a similar offer, but the negotiations had come to nothing. Estorick was taken to the Michle Synagogue where he was faced with wooden racks holding anything up to 2000 Scrolls. He was asked if he wanted to make an offer, and replied that he knew certain parties in London who might be interested.
London: The Memorial Scrolls Trust
1564 Scrolls Came to London – On his return to London, he contacted Ralph Yablon, a well-known philanthropist with a great interest in Jewish art, history, and culture. Yablon became the benefactor who put up the money to buy the Scrolls. First, Chimen Abramsky, who was to become Professor of Hebrew Studies at the University of London, was asked to go to Prague for twelve days in November 1963 to examine the Scrolls and to report on their authenticity and condition. On his return to London, it was decided that Estorick should go to Prague and negotiate a deal, which he did. Two lorries laden with 1564 Scrolls arrived at the Westminster Synagogue on 7 February 1964. After months of sorting, examining and cataloging each Scroll, the task of distributing them began, with the aim of getting the Scrolls back into the life of Jewish congregations across the world. The Memorial Scrolls Trust was established to carry out this task.
The Memorial Scrolls Trust and The Silent Messengers – It is the duty of the Memorial Scrolls Trust to care for these scrolls and to ensure that they are given a prominent role in the spiritual and educational life of the institutions to which they have been entrusted. The Trust endeavors to help these organizations to build a bond with the community symbolized by their Memorial Scroll, and to maintain a continuous awareness of the special significance of these scrolls.
Each Memorial Scroll is a messenger from a community that was lost, but does not deserve to be forgotten.
For more information on the Czech Torah Scrolls, visit their website at www.memorialscrollstrust.org