page_title: Stolpersteine in Prague-Josefov
section_title: Josefov
hierarchical_section_title: Stolpersteine in Prague-Josefov / Josefov
context_page_description: The Stolpersteine in Prague-Josefov lists the Stolpersteine in the town quarter Josefov of Prague, the former Jewish quarter of the city. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
  Generally, the stumbling blocks are posed in front of the building where the victims had their last self-chosen residence. The name of the Stolpersteine in Czech is: Kameny zmizelých, stones of the disappeareds.
  The project in the Czech Republic, namely in Josefov, was launched in 2008 by the Czech Union of Jewish Students.
context_section_description: Josefov (German: Josefstadt) is a town quarter and the smallest cadastral area of Prague, formerly the Jewish quarter of the town. It is completely surrounded by the Old Town (Czech: Staré Město pražské). Jews supposedly settled in Prague as early as the 10th century. In 1096 the first pogrom (the first crusade) took place. Eventually all Jews were concentrated within the Ghetto, shut off from the outside world by fortified walls with gates (1230–1530). As early as in the 11th, 12th and 13th century, Prague developed into a center of rabbinical scholarship and formed a school of Tosafists. In 1262 Přemysl Otakar II issued a Statuta Judaeorum which granted the community a certain degree of self-administration. On Easter Sunday of 1389 one of the worst pogroms took place, the probable number of victims during the massacre range from about 500 to more than 3,000.
  The ghetto was most prosperous towards the end of the 16th century and at the beginning of the 17th century when Judah Loew ben Bezalel served as Rabbi, when a Yeshiva was founded and when the Jewish Mayor, Mordecai Maisel, became the Minister of Finance. The very wealthy man helped develop the ghetto. By then, Prague was seen as a Hebrew metropolis in Central Europe. By 1638 the Jewish population of Prague had increased to more than 7.800. In 1744 Empress Maria Theresa ordered all Jews to leave the city. Four years later they were allowed to return. In 1848 Jews were granted permission to settle also outside the ghetto. The small district supposedly housed about 18,000 inhabitants at a certain time. Soon the wealthy Jews moved to less crowded areas. In 1850 the quarter was renamed "Josefstadt" (Joseph's City) after Emperor Joseph II who emancipated Jews with the Toleration Edict in 1781. Gradually the share of the Jewish population in Josefov decreased, with mainly orthodox and poor Jews remaining there. Between 1893 and 1913 most of the quarter was demolished as part of a restoration of the city following the model of Paris. Due to protests of inhabitants six synagogues could be saved, furthermore the old cemetery and the Old Jewish Town Hall. They are now all part of the Jewish Museum in Prague. A new boulevard with luxurious buildings and shops was created, the Paris Street (Czech: Parížská). Only rich Jews could afford housing in the newly built blocks, the poorer ones moved away. Josefov lost its traditional identity and the quarter was integrated in the Old Town.
  In the 19th century, Jews got caught up in the culture wars between Czech-speaking middle class and German-speaking members of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Beginning in the 1830s many Jews began to adopt the German language and tried hard to assimilate. In the 1870s, however, Czech nationalism increased substantially and by the last quarter of the 19th Century, a network of Czech-Jewish institutions was created. Not all Jews supported this trend, many remained faithful to German language and culture while others favored the upcoming Zionism. Conflict between the Zionists and the Czech Jewish nationalists evolved and the Jewish community was deeply divided. German speaking and writing Jews as Franz Kafka, Max Brod and Franz Werfel became world-famous novelists of the early 20th century.
  Immediately after the destruction of Czechoslovakia by Hitler and the unlawful invasion of Nazi troupes in Prague all Czech Jews became victims of several sanctions. In June 1939, Adolf Eichmann arrived in Prague, confiscated a Jewish villa in Stresovice and established The Central Office for Jewish Emigration. He forced the Jewish representatives Emil Kafka and Jakob Edelstein to comply with all his orders. At that time approximately 56,000 Jews lived in Prague. They were step by step excluded from economic life, deprived of their property, segregated in Prague restaurants and prohibited from using public baths and swimming pools. They were excluded from the movie and theatre industries, restricted to the back of the second car on Prague trams and excluded from all hotels except the Fiser and the Star. They had to we
caption: Flag of Josefov (assumed)[5]