A Sombre Day

Mrs madwill and I travelled in to the Jewish Quarter of Prague and spent the morning and a good part of the early afternoon visiting the Jewish Museum.

Some fascinating artefacts - although I think need a little more light to be able to read the information about them! That was a minor gripe..as the first part of the tour takes you through the Pinkas synagogue which has been been turned into a memorial to the 80,000 or so victims of Shoah (Holocaust) from the Bohemian lands. The name, date of birth and death of each person is painted on the walls. Just reading some of them and seeing young and old together was just incredibly moving - and I did shed a tear or two wandering round. The original memorial was closed after the Soviet takeover and the names were partially erased. After the communists were ousted, the memorial was repainted.

The photo shows the names of the camps to which the people were shipped.

Afterwards we walked around the old Jewish cemetery which is a fantastic collection of irregular and seemingly randomly placed headstones (extra). We then went on to the Spanish synagogue which is so beautifully decorated (extra).

We walked into town for a mid afternoon ‘lunch’ - by which time our son had returned from Brno, so he joined us.

Back to the apartment and our son has gone out for the evening to meet some friends in Prague.