Prague's Jewish Museum, known as Josefov in honour of Josef II issuing the Edict of Tolerance in 1781, houses the largest collection of Bohemian and Moravian Jewish material in the world. Exhibits include children's drawings from Terezin concentration camp.
When Josefov was redeveloped early in the 1900s, several buildings were preserved as the venues for a museum to commemorate the Jewish heritage of Prague and Czechoslovakia. The enterprise was threatened by the Nazi invasion during the Second World War, when the area was ghettoised but, ironically, the museum was saved by Nazi intervention, albeit in its most sinister form. The area was intended to be the Museum of an Extinct Race, thereby increasing the collection.
The museum covers much of the area known as Josefov and features the tiny Old Jewish Cemetery, containing the resting places of over 12,000 bodies and the Pinkas Synagogue, now a Holocaust memorial.
The museum covers much of the area known as Josefov and features the tiny Old Jewish Cemetery, containing the resting places of over 12,000 bodies and the Pinkas Synagogue, now a Holocaust memorial.
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