---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jan Meisels Allen <janmallen@att.net>
To: IAJGS Leadership Forum <leadership@iajgs.org>
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Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2019 18:30:26 -0800
Subject: [IAJGS Leadership] (Czech Republic) Cobbled Streets of Prague's Old Town are Fragments from Jewish Metzevahs
The cobbled streets of Prague, Czech Republic, include cut cubes of granite from previous Jewish cemeteries. The cobbles are believed to have been cut from granite matzevot taken from a destroyed Jewish cemetery founded in 1864 in the village of Údlice, in northern Bohemia near the town of Chomutov.
The cobblestones cut from Jewish gravestones were used to construct the pedestrian promenade at one end of Wenceslas Square-an upscale shopping mall. Pre-World War ll the Czech Republic had about 350,000 Jews living there, by 1946 it was reduced to 50,000, by the 1980's the Jewish population was reduced in number to 8,000. Thefts came from 600 Jewish cemeteries and were paved over by the Communists after they took over post-World War ll.
There were two Jewish cemeteries in Udlice, both destroyed after World War ll; their headstones being used as Jewish building material. More than 150 Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia that were destroyed in the Holocaust.
And
Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee
