La historia de Pruské Synagogue
Pruské lies in the Ilava district of the Trenčín region. Medieval documents call it an oppidum, a small town with the right to hold five cattle and goods fairs a year, and it belonged to the estate of Vršatec castle. A Franciscan monastery was founded there in 1642, and from 1905 to 1918 the place was officially known by the Hungarian form Poroszka; the Hebrew encyclopaedia of Jewish communities lists it as Pruszka. A Jewish community lived in the village by the nineteenth century, and its two cemeteries survive in part, the newer one with gravestones dated up to 1939.
The synagogue itself is known only from two short statements. The Slovak Wikipedia article on the village says that a synagogue once stood there, and that after the Second World War and the deportations of the Jews from Slovakia it fell into decay and was pulled down. The heritage gazetteer Pamiatky na Slovensku, citing the village's own website, says the same: the synagogue decayed after the war and was demolished later. Neither gives a date of construction, an address, a description or a date of demolition, and no photograph of the building was found. Pinkas Hakehillot, the Hebrew encyclopaedia of Jewish communities in Slovakia, has an entry on Pruszka, but it has not been translated online.
Where it stood
Historic: Pruské (Pruszka/Poroszka), Trencsén county; street and plot unknown. Today: Pruské, Ilava district, Trenčín region; pin at the point given by Pamiatky na Slovensku, near the village centre (approximate).
Abrir mapa ampliado →La comunidad judía
Very little about the Jews of Pruské can be documented from the sources found. The Hebrew encyclopaedia Pinkas Hakehillot Slovakia treats Pruszka as a community in its own right, with an entry on page 455, which shows that it was more than a few scattered families; but that entry is not available in translation, so its founding date, size and institutions are unknown here. The clearest material traces are the two Jewish cemeteries. The older one, in the north-western part of the village about 200 metres from the school, has been destroyed and no gravestones remain. The newer one, outside the village to the north-east on road 507, is enclosed by a masonry wall and holds at least 56 stones of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, inscribed in Hebrew and German, with the latest dated 1939, and a ruined purification house. Population figures, occupations, rabbis and community leaders have not been found.
Arquitectura y diseño
Nothing is known of the synagogue's appearance. The sources that mention it give no description, plan, dimensions, materials or style, and no photograph, postcard or drawing of it was found in the time available. It is not included in Maroš Borský's 2005 catalogue of Slovakia's demolished synagogues, which was built largely from archival photographs, and that absence suggests that no image of it was known to him either. Whether it was a purpose-built synagogue or a converted house or prayer room cannot be settled from the two short statements available; both call it a synagogue (synagóga) rather than a prayer room (modlitebňa). In small villages of the region such buildings were often modest structures of village scale, but that is a general observation and not evidence about Pruské. The builder, the date of construction, the number of seats and the interior arrangement, including the position of the ark and the bimah and any women's gallery, are all unknown.
La vida dentro de la sinagoga
No account of religious life in the Pruské synagogue has been found. The sources read do not say which rite the congregation followed, whether it was Orthodox or belonged to another stream of Hungarian and Slovak Jewry, whether it had its own rabbi or was served from a larger neighbouring community, or whether it kept a school or a ritual bath. The existence of two cemeteries in succession, the second walled and provided with a purification house where bodies were prepared for burial, points to an organised community with a burial society over a long period, since a cemetery of that kind needed people to maintain it. The last dated gravestone, from 1939, marks the last burial that can be dated there before the war. The names of members, officials and teachers have not been found in any source read today. The untranslated Pinkas Hakehillot entry on Pruszka is the most likely place to find details of the community's institutions, rabbis and religious life, and should be read before this section is expanded.
Destrucción
The synagogue was not destroyed during the war, as far as the sources say. Both accounts place its end after the Second World War. Once the Jews of the village had been deported, the building had no congregation to use or maintain it. According to the Slovak Wikipedia article and the Pamiatky na Slovensku gazetteer, it fell into decay after 1945 and was later demolished. Neither source gives the year of demolition, and neither says who ordered or carried it out, whether the building was first sold, or whether the demolition was undertaken by the village authorities under Communist rule, which began in 1948. Who demolished it is not recorded. The gazetteer's only cited source is the village website, which could not be opened today because it is protected by a security check, so the original wording and any date it may give remain unread.
El destino de la comunidad
The Slovak Wikipedia article on Pruské links the synagogue's decline directly to the deportations of the Jews from the territory of Slovakia, which shows that the Jewish community of the village was taken away during the war. No source read today gives the number of Jews living in Pruské at the time, the dates on which they were deported, the camps to which they were taken, or how many of them were killed. It is not known whether any survivors came back to the village after 1945. No Jewish community is recorded there after the war, and the building's slow decay after 1945 suggests that there was no congregation left to use it. A cemetery survey by the ESJF records the newer Jewish cemetery as owned by the local community; it is overgrown in places, and its purification house has lost its roof. The older cemetery has no stones left and lies beside a park, with a concrete block and beehives on the plot.
El lugar hoy
The site of the synagogue has not been identified. No source read today gives its street or plot, and no marker is recorded where it stood, so what occupies the plot now is unknown. The map pin is the point given for the synagogue by the Pamiatky na Slovensku gazetteer; it coincides with the centre of the village, close to the coordinates of the village itself, and should be read as approximate. Two Jewish cemeteries survive as places: the older one in the north-western part of the village, about 200 metres from the school, with no gravestones left, and the newer, walled cemetery north-east of the village on road 507, which still has gravestones. The renaissance manor house and the former Franciscan monastery, both still standing, are the village's main historic buildings.
¿Tiene algo que aportar?
Fotografías, documentos, historias familiares o recuerdos de esta sinagoga y su comunidad ayudan a mantener viva su historia.
Share a memory or thought
No comments yet. Be the first to add one.