Holocaust Torah

B’nai Shalom is honored and privileged to be the home to Czech Memorial Scroll number 306, which is on loan from the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London, England. This sacred Torah was rescued from the town of Louny, Czechoslovakia, after the Nazis had occupied the region during World War II, and sent its entire Jewish population to their deaths at Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. Prior to that, the Jews had enjoyed a presence and history in the small town of Louny for hundreds of years, going back to the year 1254. This Torah scroll was written sometime in the 1700s. The Jews of Louny built a large synagogue which was completed in 1871, and by 1902 there were over 650 Jews in the town.

Religious ceremonies were held there until the German occupation in 1939. By September of 1942, the synagogue at Louny had been taken over by the Nazis who had systematically assigned cataloging numbers to the Jewish 'equipment' there. This Torah was given the number 306 at that time. It was among over 1560 Torahs that miraculously survived from what are now decimated Jewish communities of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. These were stored by the Czechoslovak government, and later were purchased by the Westminster Synagogue. The Memorial Scrolls Trust formed in 1964 in London, England, carefully distributed these precious surviving Torahs to synagogues throughout the world as living testaments to a destroyed Jewish population that once thrived.

We have been entrusted to tell the story and remember all the Jews who held this Torah whose lives were destroyed, but whose faith lives on in this sacred and ancient scroll. Please visit the Memorial Scrolls Trust website at www.memorialscrollstrust.org for more information about the extraordinary story of the surviving Czech Holocaust Torahs.