A Torah scroll that the Nazis stole from a Czech congregation on display at The Memorial Scrolls Trust in London. (Courtesy of the European Union for Progressive Judaism)

A Torah scroll that the Nazis stole from for their planned museum on Judaism in Prague will return to use there later this month.  Memorial Scrolls Trust, a London-based nonprofit that preserves Torah scrolls and other scripture, on Sunday said it will transfer scroll no. 1052, as it is catalogued there, to the use of Ec Chaim, a Progressive Jewish congregation in the Prague.

History

In 1942, the Nazis seized the scroll, which was written in 1890 in Brno, a city situated about 100 miles southeast of Prague. They had the scroll shipped to the Central Jewish Museum, an institution that they wanted to use to showcase thousands of liturgical objects they had stolen from Jewish communities they pillaged. That museum has become the Jewish Museum of Prague, which is owned by the local Jewish community.

To read more see:

https://www.jta.org/2021/09/20/global/torah-scroll-the-nazis-stole-for-their-post-holocaust-jewish-museum-returns-to-service-in-prague?

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee