A new map app sharing stories of the 30,000 Holocaust victims from the Czech capital has also been released to mark the occasion.
The app, called MemoGIS Prague, was developed by the Czech Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the Multicultural Centre Prague and the Terezín Initiative Institute.
The app functions in a web browser on a computer or a mobile phone and can be found at this link.
The map opens with a view of Prague, with a current map as well as a historical map. It contains thousands of points, including 30, 000 entries for Jews who lived in Prague before their deportation, almost 10,000 houses where they were registered.
It also includes hundreds of points of interest, such as parks that were prohibited to Jews or synagogues that were transformed into storages of confiscated property.
The exclamation marks in red circles show the incidents where someone was arrested or denounced for trespassing the anti-Jewish decrees.”
The English version will be available in the next few weeks.
World War II
On March 14, 1939, Slovakia declared independence from Prague and signed the Treaty of Protection with Nazi Germany. The next day, Germany occupied Czech lands.
At the outbreak of World War II, over 92,000 Jews lived in Prague, almost 20 percent of the city’s population. Prague was one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe. At least two-thirds of the Jewish population of Prague perished in the Holocaust.
In the Czech Republic, about 26,000 members of the Czech Jewish community escaped and emigrated to various countries and regions, including Palestine, the United States, South America and Western Europe. Not all Czech Jews were so fortunate.
Of the vast majority of Czech Jews that were imprisoned in Terezin, 80 percent of those were deported to Auschwitz, Maidanek, Treblinka and Sobibor. Other Czech Jews were sent directly to death camps.
Over 97,000 perished, of which 15,000 were Czech Jewish children. Only 132 of those children were known to have survived.
More than a quarter of a million Czech Jews were murdered in the Holocaust and more than 60 synagogues in the Czech lands were destroyed.
