3843 - A Big Jewish Past


For centuries Prague has been culturally mixed. Czech is a West Slavic language and its spekers were self-confident members of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, although, as the name of the state betrays, they were always second in rank to the Germans and the Hungarians. Everybody else in the monarchy was third rank though 🙂

I have no hard number available, but, as far as I remember, about a third of the pre-WWI population of Prague spoke German, many of them Jews.

We know of a Jewish population in Prague from the first millenium on. Their “Golden Age” (like in so many places interrupted by pogromes once in a while) began in the early 16th century and lasted until 1939. Then it was all apocalypse.