41) Český Krumlov Synagoga

Český Krumlov Synagoga

  Imagine time-travelling to Prague 500 years ago and you have Český Krumlov (sounds like a cake, quipped Bert when we told him we were going there). And it was a cake ! Sweet and well-preserved with candied terra-cotta roofs. There I crossed through the quaint, treed, medieval village to find the synagogue that survived the war and that stayed open for me after closing time, only because no-one was there and I got to spend a privileged, intimate hour reading the displays about the cultured Jewish family that built it and had developed around it a philanthropic, educated community, only to be deported to Terezin. 

     Photo by Josef Seidel (1915)

Accurate reconstruction of the interior was made possible thanks to the Seidel photo taken in 1915, above.

   Succah in the synagogue's garden

My guess is that the present Synagoga Cafe was once the rabbi's flat. It's charming.

I felt very emotional reading the history of the Jewry in Český Krumlov.