A Torah Given New Life at Temple Beth Ohr

In 1942, members of Prague’s Jewish community devised a way to bring religious treasures from deserted communities and destroyed synagogues to the comparative safety of Prague. The Nazis were persuaded to accept the plan, and more than 100,000 artifacts were brought to the Museum, including about 1,800 Torah scrolls.

Each scroll was meticulously recorded, labeled, and entered into a card index with a description of the scroll and the town it came from. Working under appalling conditions, the Museum’s staff preserved what little remained of Jewish life decimated by Nazi hatred.

It was hoped these treasures would be protected and might one day return to their original communities. Tragically, the Museum’s curators were eventually transported to Terezin and Auschwitz. Only two survived, and after the war the Czech Jewish community was too depleted to be able to care for the collection.

The scrolls were later purchased from the Czech government by philanthropist Ralph Yablon and sent to the Westminster Synagogue in London, which established the Memorial Scrolls Trust to care for them. Some scrolls were damaged by fire, water, rodents, rot, and tears, a grim testimony to the fate of the people who had once prayed with them.

Inside one scroll was a note: “Please God help us in these troubled times.” Of the 1,564 scrolls, 216 lost their tags along the journey and cannot be traced to a specific community.