Before re-posting the first of two items (indirectly related to Christmas) from my 2016 visit to Cologne, I present this one from earlier in that journey, about the renowned, melancholy Jewish graveyard in Prague. Its relevance to Christmas is still more oblique, but I offer it now (having already put it on this blog in July, 2022) to manifest my belief that the charism of Christ’s Nativity was intended to offer benevolence to the whole human family. And most especially to its victimized members – ‘massacred innocents’ – like the Jews of Nazi-controlled Europe.

(Besides: as it explains here, it is delectably satisfying to think that one may, even minutely, help to frustrate part of Hitler’s most dreadful dream.)

Surely, few attitudes could be further from one who transcended the Self to the point of forgiving those crucifying Him, than indifference to the welfare of other people; Any other people. And Christians are meant to believe Christ’s sacrifice (and example) was not for themselves alone, but also for those who do not accept that faith; formally. For as noted before, I believe actions speak louder than words.

Concern for more than just one’s Self is a pillar of classic Jewish ethics, much of which got transmitted to the world via Christ. So I hope it is not unseemly for me to refer, even ‘obliquely,’ to Christmas in the context of this iconic Jewish site. It is also my gesture of respect and gratitude to Judaism, which has so helped to define civilization in general.

Which was surely one reason the Nazis, as enemies of true ‘civilization,’ were so murderously hostile to it.

Jewish Cemetery, Prague: This is a last picture from my visit to Prague, posted separately from all the others to call special attention to the long Jewish presence there. It is my small contribution to helping to thwart Hitler’s dream that not only all of the world’s Jews, but all memory of their very existence, should be obliterated.

Long before the Nazis definitively eradicated it, the ancient Jewish community there had a tempestuous and often violent history. The tale of the “golem,” a mythical monster created to protect Jews from persecution, originated in Prague.

These monuments had a calm dignity that made them very different from the only other cemetery I intentionally visited in Europe, Pere Lachaise in Paris. That place is far newer – its first burials seem to have been from around the time this one accepted no more. There have been no interments at this location for some 200 years, and many of the stones are so old they are slowly sinking into the soil, as if to mimic the “dust to dust” return to Earth of those who lie beneath them.

But many tombs in Pere Lachaise were the virtual opposite, in spirit, of these simple memorials. Most were at least ostentatious, others over-the-top Gallic theatrical. Many Parisian ones made with wrought iron or intricately carved stone are now deteriorating badly, no longer the proud spectacles their owners probably hoped to last forever. These in Prague, much less elaborate (usually just a Hebrew inscription and some image to mark the owner’s work in life, like grapes for a wine merchant) are much less liable to such decay.

I can only speculate on why there was such a stark contrast in how eternity was approached in these two places and eras. It may just have been that the Jews of Prague couldn’t afford anything finer, or that religious authorities there prohibited ostentation. Or it may have been a resignation to mortality that the Parisians refused, trying to resist the anonymity of death with elaborate memorials. No such pretense is apparent among these gravestones of Prague. And ironically, as the monuments at Pere Lachaise now rust and erode, they imply the destructive triumph of time more, not less.

I am still perplexed – though delighted – that the Nazis, who despoiled Jewish culture everywhere they conquered, left this cemetery and venerable synagogues nearby alone. These are all in central Prague so the Germans must have known they were there. Perhaps it was just one of their absurd concerns for “appearances”, of imagining the natives wouldn’t think they were vicious barbarians if they left a few familiar local highlights (but not live Jews) untouched.

If anybody knows why the Nazis spared this cemetery and those adjacent sacred structures, please tell the rest of us.