Stolpersteine in Prague-Josefov

They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.

Generally, the stumbling blocks are posed in front of the building where the victims had their last self-chosen residence.

Eventually all Jews were concentrated within the Ghetto, shut off from the outside world by fortified walls with gates (1230–1530).

As early as in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, Prague developed into a center of rabbinical scholarship and formed a school of Tosafists.

[1] In 1262 Přemysl Otakar II issued a Statuta Judaeorum which granted the community a certain degree of self-administration.

On Easter Sunday of 1389 one of the worst pogroms took place, the probable number of victims during the massacre ranged from about 500 to more than 3,000.

The ghetto was most prosperous towards the end of the 16th century and at the beginning of the 17th century when Judah Loew ben Bezalel served as Rabbi, when a Yeshiva was founded and when the Jewish Mayor, Mordecai Maisel, became the Minister of Finance.

Gradually the share of the Jewish population in Josefov decreased, with mainly orthodox and poor Jews remaining there.

Due to protests of inhabitants six synagogues could be saved, furthermore the old cemetery and the Old Jewish Town Hall.

A new boulevard with luxurious buildings and shops was created, the Paris Street (Czech: Parížská).

Only rich Jews could afford housing in the newly built blocks, the poorer ones moved away.

In the 19th century, Jews got caught up in the culture wars between Czech-speaking middle class and German-speaking members of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

In the 1870s, however, Czech nationalism increased substantially and by the last quarter of the 19th Century, a network of Czech-Jewish institutions was created.

Not all Jews supported this trend, many remained faithful to German language and culture while others favored the upcoming Zionism.

[4] Immediately after the destruction of Czechoslovakia by Hitler and the unlawful invasion of Nazi troops in Prague all Czech Jews became victims of several sanctions.

He forced the Jewish representatives Emil Kafka and Jakob Edelstein to comply with all his orders.

They had to wear the Judenstern and were banned from public service and all social, cultural and economic organizations.

In August 1940 Jewish children were excluded from Czech schools and in October Jews were denied access to a wide range of rationed goods.

[4] On 10 October 1941 Reinhard Heydrich, Karl Hermann Frank and Eichmann developed the plan to deport all Jews from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Łódź Ghetto, Minsk and Riga, and to establish Theresienstadt concentration camp.

On 3 August 1942 Rudolf Freudenfeld was deported from Prague to Theresienstadt concentration camp with Transport AAw.

[18] On 2 July 1942 Adéla Freudenfeldová was deported with Transport AAl from Prague to Theresienstadt concentration camp.

At the time she reported the death of her mother and her brother to Yad Vashem, in 1987, she lived in Chicago, was married to Max Czerner and carried his name.

Among them was Raya Czerner Schapiro (born 1934 in Prague, deceased 2007 in Chicago), the mother of Andrew H.

[26] Son Ervín was also deported within a short period after the death of his mother and was murdered by the Nazi regime in Auschwitz concentration camp.

In 1987, Irma reported the deportation and death of her mother and her brother to the Central Database of Shoah's victims' names in Yad Vashem.

His mother-in-law, Berta Skallová née Morgenstern, was brought to death by the Nazi regime on 11 May 1943 in Theresienstadt.

The report to the Central Database of Shoah's victims' names in Yad Vashem was submitted by her sister, Elisabeth Schaffer born Hertzka, in 2009, a Holocaust survivor, then living in Berlin.

The report to the Central Database of Shoah's victims' names in Yad Vashem was submitted by his uncle, Oto Raubichek, in 1957.

Her daughter Eva was brought to Auschwitz concentration camp in September 1943 and thereafter murdered by the Nazi regime.

[69] The now defunct website stolpersteine.cz included in their list also stumbling blocks for Gabriele Hermannová and Otílie Davidová, two of the three sisters of novelist Franz Kafka.