The Jewish Museum in Prague was established in 1906 and holds one of the most extensive collections of Judaica in the world, with as many as 40,000 items and 100,000 books from Bohemia and Moravia. It is consistently the most visited museum in the Czech republic. In addition to its permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum focuses on organising various cultural and educational events related to the Jewish history and life. Another important focus of the museum is on the period of modern Jewish history, in particular the history and fate of Jews in the 20^th century. This area of interest is mainly dealt with by the museum's Shoah History Department, Archives, Photo Archive and Department for Education and Culture.

Shoah History Department of the Jewish Museum in Prague

The Shoah History Department focuses on collecting and presenting written and photographic documents relating to the Second World War period and the Holocaust. The core of the Archives are the Terezín Collection and the Persecution Documents, which contain a large number of various materials (official documents, the personal papers of Terezín prisoners, literary works, music scores, diaries, albums, magazines, etc.). The collections are being continually expanded. The Shoah History Department is intensively focusing on the digitization and cataloguing of archival material. Since 2013 the Terezín Collection has been available online, providing access to one of the main sources for the study of the history of the Terezín ghetto.

Oral History Project

The Shoah History Department is concentrating on an oral history project, in which interviews with survivors and witnesses are being recorded. The interviews cover not only the Shoah period but also the post-war experiences of the first and second generations. Our aim is to preserve Jewish memory and to establish the Jewish experience as part of the Czech collective memory. At present, the Oral History Collection has more than 1,300 testimonies and is the largest of its kind in the Czech Republic. This material is available to the research community and the general public, for publication or exhibition purposes, and for creating educational materials.

The department also provides research information and services to the general public and specialists alike from throughout the world. Each year the department’s staff complete hundreds of research tasks, provide consultations, and supply information about Shoah victims and survivors.

Jewish Museum in the Prague and the EHRI project

The Shoah History Department of the Jewish Museum in Prague has been a partner of the EHRI project since its inception in 2010. In the first phase of EHRI, the Jewish Museum in Prague was the leader of Work Package 2 (WP2): Trans-institutional Research Guides, which aimed to bring together archival documents that were dispersed across several archives in various countries. One of the research guides focused on the Terezín ghetto, while the other dealt with the topic of the Jewish communities in the Czech lands, Austria and Hungary during the Second World War. The Jewish Museum in Prague contributes to the EHRI project mainly through its experience with digital curation and communication to different audiences, including both scholars and the general public.

For the second phase of the EHRI project, the Jewish Museum in Prague leads the Work Package 12 (WP12): New Views on Digital Archives. The main goal is to develop new and creative ways of presenting digital archival content. WP12 achieved its first results by launching the EHRI Document Blog in January 2016. The blog was created as a space to share ideas about Holocaust-related archival material, and to experiment with their interpretation using different digital tools, especially when it comes to presenting information in a visual form. EHRI partners, fellows and other researchers, archivists, librarians and digital humanists have the chance to highlight their own research and digital content through the blog. Alongside more traditional archival information, the EHRI Blog wants to tell the story of the documents, offering rich content and background information relating to the people, organisation, events and places that are mentioned. So far, eleven contributions have been published on the Document Blog.

WP12 is also working on the creation of two online editions of archival materials. The first one will explore the topic of diplomatic reports from the time of the Holocaust, while the second one will focus on the early Holocaust testimonies. The editions will follow scientific criteria, providing an introduction as well as in-depth analysis.

Magdalena Sedlická

Photos: ©Jewish Museum in Prague. First image: Pinkas Synagogue