Famous Czechs – Franz Kafka As Franz Kafka lay on his death bed at the age of 40 on June 3rd 1924 he would scarcely have believed that less than half a Century later his name would be known around the world, his literary work appearing in more than 30 languages, his private letters and … Read More
Prague and INXS For those of us in our 50s who still remember INXS and have at least two CD copies of the album “Kick” then that period between 1987 and 1997 was pretty special. I remember watching the Never Tear Us Apart video on MTV in 1988 and I remember being in a hotel … Read More
The Terezin Ghetto Editors It’s December 1941 and the Nazis had begun the deportation of the Jewish community from all parts of the Protectorate (what Czech was called during WW2) to the new internment camp called the Terezin Ghetto. By the summer of 1942 conditions were getting worse with overcrowding and the Jewish Council in … Read More
The Prague Jewish Ghetto Destruction On this post I’ll seek to give you an overview of the timeline and decisions taken which eventually led to the destruction of the Prague Jewish Ghetto. Before the year 1437 Jewish citizens in Prague could live wherever they wanted and there is ample evidence to show that they had … Read More
The Old Jewish Ceremonial Hall in Prague, there’s more than one! This building in Josefov is strongly linked to something called Chevra Kadisha and I’ll explain more about them below. Both the Old Ceremonial Hall and the adjacent Klausen Synagogue deal with Jewish customs and traditions. The Old Jewish Ceremonial Hall story is described on … Read More
Prague Calvary The official title is the Statuary of the Holy Crucifix and Calvary. You may think this is just another statue on Charles Bridge. Actually you will find out that it was the original figure on the bridge, the most historic and the most religiously divisive. We’re talking legends and blasphemy. There are two … Read More
SS Patria Disaster A trans-Atlantic liner called the SS Patria sank on 25th November 1940 at the port of Haifa in what was then Palestine. You’re thinking what the hell as this got to do with Prague? Well for me it all started with a photo. In 2015 I was preparing to start my Walking … Read More
Pinkas Synagogue, a National Holocaust Memorial Sometimes you can look at a building and have an idea of what came before a certain time and what came after. This post about the Pinkas Synagogue can also be broken into two parts. Before and after World War Two. The Pinkas Synagogue is on the route of … Read More
Jubilee Synagogue in Prague So you’re coming to Prague and intend spending a day in the Jewish Quarter. You’ll buy the Jewish Museum ticket and visit all the accessible synagogues right? Wrong! If you do that you’ll miss one because it’s not officially part of the Jewish Museum in Prague. It’s the newest, largest, cheapest … Read More
Walking on Gravestones The idea for this post started when I gave a Private Walking Tour to a couple of clients in January 2019 and they asked me about the Jewish Cobble Stones i.e. cobble stones made from the headstones of Jewish people, that they had recently read about. I admit that I was not … Read More