Family Albums

Ostrava and its Jews Volume 2
Lawson, David and Salomonovičová, Libuše

In Volume I, Ostrava and its Jews, the authors present the story of the Ostrava Jewish Community from its beginning in the eighteenth century, through the Holocaust to the present. After the murder of almost all the Jewish population, the majority of those who survived fled Ostrava for the far reaches of the world.  

In volume II, Family Albums, the authors record something of Ostrava Jewish families, including photographs which survived the war in the pockets of soldiers, in the small suitcases of Kindertransport children, and in various hiding places where later generations have found them, as well as from several Czech archives.

These photographs evoke a rich and diverse life, with proud Czech soldiers, bearded Victorian patriarchs, adored children, weddings, and holidays. Then we see a group of school children wearing the yellow star in 1942, shortly before they were transported to the camps and murdered. Shopkeepers, hoteliers, doctors, lawyers, rabbis and many others appear and now all have vanished leaving nothing but their genealogical data and memories.

424 pages, 642 b/w illustrations

Copyright: 22/10/2020