CS / EN

Memorial Plaque to the Jewish Transports, Praha-Holešovice

Basic Information

Location
Česko > Hlavní město Praha > okres Hlavní město Praha > Praha > Holešovice
Location Details: Veletržní Street No. 1502/20, on the supporting wall of the parking area at the Parkhotel, now the Mama Shelter Prague hotel

Coordinates
50.102167, 14.432016

Type
Relief sculpture, representational, Wall plaque, exterior, Holocaust monument / memorial

Location
Assembly and/or deportation site

Artist / Maker / Company
Helga Hošková-Weissová (Sculpture)

Textual Content
Historical narrative

Languages
Czech, Hebrew

Whom the Monument Commemorates
Jewish victims, Victims of concentration camps

Czech Jews, victims of mass murder, and the site of the former Radiotrh from where they were deported.

Iconographical Subject
Human figure, Magen David

Material
Bronze

Dimensions
Width: 248 cm
Height: 100 cm
Depth: 3 cm

Commissioned By
National Committee of the City of Prague

Dates

1990 Design 1991 October 16 Unveiling

Signature

H 91

Description

The horizontally oriented bronze relief depicts nine figures, men, women and children, heading for destruction symbolized by flames. More symbols are carried by a figure of a woman with the word "Jude" in a Jewish star, referring to the exclusion of Jews from the national community, and a figure of a man with a tag on his chest, referring to the dehumanization of Jews and reduction of people to transport numbers. Instead of the number, the tag bears the Hebrew word "yizkor", which opens the Jewish prayer for the dead. The same expression is repeated to the right of the figural motif, with a textual dedication to the left. The work is located on the supporting wall of the Parkhotel building, on the site of the Radiotrh compounds, where the transports from Prague were organized.

Inscription

NA PAMÁTKU
VÍCE NEŽ 80 TISÍC
ČESKÝCH ŽIDŮ
VYVRAŽDĚNÝCH
V LETECH 1941–1945
45.513 MUŽŮ
ŽEN A DĚTÍ
BYLO ODVLEČENO
Z TĚCHTO MÍST

יזכור

History

The commemorative plaque was created on the instigation of the Terezín Initiative. The original idea was to use a copy of the work by Břetislav Benda (1897–1983), which the artist had created for this place but which was eventually, after long delays, placed in Terezín (see the database entry Farewell, Terezín). Nevertheless, on the recommendation of the National Committee of the City of Prague, Helga Hošková-Weissová (1929) created a new work which intentionally builds on the original in its overall representation, symbolism and textual dedication.
The relief commemorates the site of the former Radiotrh, one of the 15 assembly points, created here in October 1941, from where Jews from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were deported. Most of the transports were heading from the nearby Prague-Bubny railway station to the ghetto in Terezín. The memorial plaque was unveiled in Prague's Holešovice on 16 October 1991 as part of the commemorative events held in Prague and Terezín to mark the 50th anniversary of the Terezín ghetto.

Sources

Archives

Archive of the City of Prague, coll. Art Council of the National Committee of the City of Prague 1972–1991, inv. No. 319.

Literature

Jiří Steiner, Naše radost, naše slzy…: ze setkání k 50. výročí vzniku terezínského ghetta, Terezínská iniciativa 1992, No. 2 – February, pp. 4–5.
Peter Hallama, Nationale Helden und jüdische Opfer: Tschechische Repräsentationen des Holocaust, Göttingen 2015, pp. 299–300, 312.
Helga Hošková-Weissová, Nikdo nás nečekal: Vzpomínky malířky, která přežila holocaust, Brno 2020, pp. 84–85.

Websites

Media

More photos

Entry Author

Markéta Devátá