Kostelec nad Černými lesy Synagogue

סקירה

הסיפור של Kostelec nad Černými lesy Synagogue

Kostelec nad Černými lesy, called Černý Kostelec in Czech and Schwarzkosteletz in German, is a small town in the Praha-východ district of Central Bohemia, about seven kilometres south-south-west of the village of Přistoupim and of the Jewish centre at Český Brod. Its synagogue is known today almost entirely from a single line in Jiří Fiedler's gazetteer of Jewish monuments in Bohemia and Moravia. In the paragraph on Jewish congregations and associations around Přistoupim, Fiedler lists Kostelec nad Černými lesy as a town with a synagogue from the first half of the nineteenth century and notes that it was demolished in the twentieth century. He gives no year, no street and no description.

Fiedler's wording matters. In the same paragraph he distinguishes between synagogues and mere prayer rooms (modlitebny): Škvorec and Vykáň had prayer rooms, while Kostelec, Kounice and Úvaly had synagogues. Kostelec therefore seems to have had a building put up as a synagogue, not just a room in a house. The register of Jewish monuments kept by the Jewish Community of Prague, which lists surviving synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish quarters across the country, has no entry for the town, which agrees with Fiedler's statement that nothing of the building survives. No photograph, plan or description of it was found.

מיקום

Where it stood

Historic: Kostelec nad Černými lesy (Schwarzkosteletz), Kouřim region; street and house number unknown. Today: unknown; placeholder pin on náměstí Smiřických, 281 63 Kostelec nad Černými lesy, Praha-východ district (approximate).

פתיחת מפה גדולה ←

הקהילה היהודית

Very little about the Jewish community of Kostelec nad Černými lesy was found in the sources read for this entry. Fiedler names the town among the Jewish religious congregations and associations in the neighbourhood of Přistoupim, which shows that its Jews formed an organised group with a synagogue of their own by the first half of the nineteenth century. The wider area had an old Jewish presence: Fiedler records three Jewish families and a small prayer room serving the surrounding villages at Přistoupim in 1724, and about 200 Jews in the district of the Český Brod-Přistoupim congregation in 1890. Nearby, Kounice had a synagogue of 1863, Úvaly one of 1850, and Škvorec and Vykáň prayer rooms. How many Jews lived in Kostelec itself, when they settled there, which families belonged to the congregation, whether it had a rabbi or teacher of its own, and when it merged with or became dependent on a neighbouring community are all unknown.

אדריכלות ועיצוב

Nothing is known of the building's appearance. Fiedler dates it only to the first half of the nineteenth century, and no photograph, drawing, plan or written description of it was found, and its plot has not been identified. The architect or builder, the materials, the size of the prayer hall, whether it had a women's gallery and how many seats it held are all unknown. For comparison only, the surviving synagogue in nearby Přistoupim, built about 1842 in the Neo-Romanesque style according to Fiedler, shows the scale of a country synagogue in this district, but no source links the two buildings in design or construction.

החיים בבית הכנסת

No record of services, officials or communal life inside the Kostelec synagogue was found in the sources read. Fiedler's classification of the town among the area's Jewish congregations and associations implies that regular prayer was held there, at least for the high holidays, from the time the building was finished in the first half of the nineteenth century. No rabbi, teacher, cantor or community president of Kostelec is named in any source found. From the middle of the nineteenth century Jews in this district moved in growing numbers to the larger towns, and Fiedler notes that after 1917 the rabbi for the area lived in Český Brod. Whether the Kostelec congregation still met in its synagogue in the twentieth century, and when services ended, is unknown.

הרס

The only statement found about the end of the building is Jiří Fiedler's note that the synagogue of Kostelec nad Černými lesy was demolished in the twentieth century. He gives no year and does not say whether it was pulled down before the Second World War, during the Nazi German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, or under Communist rule after 1948. Nothing read for this entry says whether the building had first been sold, converted to another use or left derelict, and who ordered or carried out the demolition is not recorded. Its absence from the Jewish Community of Prague's register of surviving Jewish monuments confirms that no part of it is known to stand today. Because no source shows the building standing after 1945, the destruction cannot be attributed to any particular period or actor.

גורל הקהילה

No source read for this entry gives the number of Jews living in Kostelec nad Černými lesy in the 1930s or describes what happened to them. In the wider area, Fiedler records ten Jews in Přistoupim and 74 in Český Brod in 1930 and states that the Český Brod-Přistoupim congregation was not re-established after the Second World War. In the last months of the war, Fiedler records a grave at Přistoupim of eight women who died on a prisoner transport from Auschwitz in January 1945. Whether any Jews still lived in Kostelec by then, and how many of them were deported and murdered, could not be established in this research, and no organised Jewish life in the town after 1945 is recorded.

האתר כיום

The exact site of the synagogue has not been identified. Fiedler gives no address, and no historical map or photograph was found that would locate it. The Jewish Community of Prague's register of Jewish monuments has no entry for Kostelec nad Černými lesy, so no remains or marker are recorded. The map pin for this entry is a placeholder on náměstí Smiřických, the main square of the town, and should not be read as the place where the synagogue stood. Locating the plot will need the stable cadastre maps of the nineteenth century or the town's local-history collections.

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