Davle Synagogue

PRZEGLĄD

Historia Davle Synagogue

Davle lies where the Sázava flows into the Vltava, about 20 kilometres south of Prague, in today's Praha-západ district of Central Bohemia. Jewish families lived in the town and the surrounding villages by the later nineteenth century, and for religious and registry purposes they belonged to the Jewish religious community of Zbraslav. According to the description on the castles-and-monuments portal hrady.cz, the Jews of Davle bought a small house in 1880 and rebuilt it as a synagogue. The Czech Holocaust memorials database dates the synagogue's existence from 1877 to 1960, while the stone set on the site in 2019 says 1880 to 1960, so the building may have been in Jewish hands or in use before its conversion was completed.

The synagogue stood on Vltavská street at the point where the road turns up towards the village of Sloup, above what is now a pizzeria. It was a modest prayer house rather than a monumental building, and no plan or close photograph of it was found. The building survived the war and stood until 1960, when it was pulled down. In 1975 the road was widened over its plot and a small park was laid out there.

LOKALIZACJA

Where it stood for 83 years

Historic: Davle (Dawle), Vltava riverside road at the turn towards Sloup; house number unknown. Today: small park on Vltavská street, 252 06 Davle, Praha-západ, at the turn to Sloup (approximate, marked by the memorial stone on the site).

Otwórz większą mapę →

Społeczność żydowska

Davle was never the seat of its own Jewish religious community. The Jewish residents of the market town and the neighbouring villages belonged to the Jewish religious community of Zbraslav, a few kilometres downstream towards Prague, and the Davle synagogue served them as a local house of prayer within that community. Their numbers are unknown, but the list of victims read at the site in 2019 shows the names of the families who still lived there in the 1930s: Frankmann, Guth, Jelinek, Kareš, Kárný, Kraus, Lederer, Rind and Seidl. At least one Jewish family, the Karpeles family, was prominent enough for one of its members to serve as mayor of Davle; a 2019 talk by Professor Pavel Hošek, a descendant of the family, was titled 'On the Jewish mayor of Davle', but the mayor's name and term of office were not found in the sources read. The history of Jewish settlement in Davle was the subject of a 2019 lecture by Tomáš Krákora and of an exhibition in the town hall, neither of which was available in written form.

Architektura i projekt

Almost nothing is recorded about the building's appearance. The only written description found, on hrady.cz, says that the community bought a small house in 1880 and rebuilt it as a synagogue, so it was a converted dwelling rather than a purpose-built synagogue, and its architect or builder is unknown. Its size, seating capacity, the layout of the prayer hall and any women's gallery are also unknown. A historical aerial view of Davle published in the town's online gallery under the file name 'synagoga' presumably includes the building, but the synagogue cannot be picked out with certainty among the houses in that picture. The memorial stone on the site reproduces an old photograph of the synagogue, and the information board beside it carries another; these images were not available in a usable copy. Nothing survives of the building on the site.

Życie w synagodze

No records of services, rabbis, cantors or teachers at the Davle synagogue were found. As a branch prayer house of the Zbraslav community it probably had no rabbi of its own and relied on the Zbraslav rabbinate for weddings, burials and the registry, but this is not stated in any source read. The congregation was small: the 21 Holocaust victims named for Davle in 2019 belonged to about nine families, and the whole group of worshippers before the war is unlikely to have been much larger. Several of those families, among them the Kraus, Guth, Lederer and Seidl households, had three or four members each, which suggests a community of established families rather than single newcomers. Prominence in local life is shown by the Karpeles family, one of whom became the town's mayor. How long regular services continued, and whether the synagogue was still used in the 1930s, is unknown.

Zniszczenie

The synagogue was not destroyed during the Nazi occupation. No source records damage to it in 1939-1945, and the Czech Holocaust memorials database states that it stood until 1960. After the war the building stood empty, its congregation gone. In 1960, under Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, it was demolished. The sources read give no reason for the demolition and do not say who ordered or carried it out, nor whether the building had first been sold or transferred by the Jewish community. Fifteen years later, in 1975, the road along the Vltava was widened across the plot and a small park was created on the remaining ground, so the demolition may have been connected with plans for the road, but no source says so. The local magazine report of 2019 and the municipal pages consulted are silent on the circumstances, and the local chronicle (kronika) of Davle, which may record the demolition, was not read.

Los społeczności

After the Nazi occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939, the Jews of Davle were subject to the anti-Jewish measures of the Protectorate and, from 1941, to deportation. The list of victims read at the site of the synagogue on 26 April 2019 named 21 Jews from Davle who were murdered: Hugo and Ida Frankmann; Arnošt, Richard, Anna and Jana Guth; Leopold Jelinek; Antonín Kareš; Emil Kárný; Edmund, Josef, Karel, Luděk and Berta Kraus; Emil, Hermína and Kamila Lederer; Kamila Rind; and Rudolf, Elsa and Zdenka Seidl. According to the town's magazine Soutok, they died in Treblinka, Auschwitz, Malý Trostinec and Mauthausen; a lecture at the commemoration traced their transports to Treblinka, Malý Trostinec and Auschwitz, most of them presumably by way of Terezín. The Czech Holocaust memorials database states that most of the town's Jewish residents perished in Nazi concentration and extermination camps. No Jewish community was re-established in Davle after the war.

Miejsce dzisiaj

The plot lies on Vltavská street in Davle, at the turn of the road towards Sloup, above a pizzeria. Nothing of the building remains. In 1975 the road was widened over part of the site and a small park was laid out on the rest. In 2018 the town council prepared a renovation of the former synagogue grounds, and since April 2019 a stone memorial with an inscription recording that a synagogue stood there from 1880 to 1960 stands in the park, with an information board on the history of the Jewish community nearby.

Pomóż zachować pamięć

Czy masz coś do przekazania?

Zdjęcia, dokumenty, historie rodzinne lub wspomnienia o tej synagodze i jej społeczności pomagają zachować jej historię.