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1185 Sheridan Road, Glencoe, IL 60022847.835.0724

SHOAH TORAH

NSCI’s Shoah Torah, MST#229, is from Pardubice and was written c. 1850. Located in the center of East Bohemia, Pardubice (Par-doo-BIT-sa), is now part of the Czech Republic.

 

     

 

Long Journey to NSCI

MST #229 had a long journey from Pardubice to Glencoe, Illinois. During World War II, the Jewish communities of Bohemia and Moravia gathered their Torahs, gold and silver finials, books, and textiles from their devastated synagogues and sent them to the Jewish Museum in Prague in 1942. NSCI’s Shoah Torah was one of 18 Torahs that was transported from Pardubice to Prague along with Judaica from all over the region. Just a few years after the war ended, there was a Communist coup in 1948 which took over, among other things, the Jewish Museum and storage in Prague. With little attention paid to the Jewish artifacts, more than 1,500 Torah scrolls were transferred from the museum to the basement of a warehouse that had once been the sixteenth-century Michle Synagogue.

 

Forgotten Scrolls

The forgotten Torah scrolls were rescued in 1964 after the Memorial Scrolls Trust was established in England. The Trust was used to purchase the scrolls from the Czech government and bring them to the Westminster Synagogue in London. Here, the Torahs were restored and cataloged. This is when NSCI’s Shoah Torah received the formal designation, MST #229. In 1967, under the leadership of Rabbi Edgar Siskin, NSCI received its Shoah Torah.

 

Silent Witnesses

The Czech scrolls are survivors and silent witnesses. They represent not only the lost communities of Bohemia and Moravia, but all those who perished in the Shoah. Since its inception, Memorial Scrolls Trust Torahs have been distributed to communities and organizations around the world. The scrolls are never sold or donated, but allocated on loan from MST to be utilized, honored, and cherished.

 

Looking to learn more about the Holocaust? Check out our page Remembering the Holocaust here and find links to our videos of survivor testimonies and past Holocaust remembrance programs, as well as links to Holocaust education and museum resources.

 

Memorial Scrolls Trust

To learn more about Memorial Scrolls Trust in London and to view the location of other Shoah Torahs throughout the world, please click  HERE.

Tue, March 19 2024 9 Adar II 5784