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Today we visited Loštice before coming to Olomouc in the Czech Republic. We saw The Loštice synagogue and the Jewish cemetery and as I was looking at the landscape I’ve come to wonder why would the Nazis terrorize the land?

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Below is a restored synagogue originally built in 1805 in the town of Lostice. The Jews of this era were assimilated into German culture which shows their willingness to reform their ideologies towards German values. During the Holocaust, Nazis would raid small towns in an attempt to find hiding Jews which eventually led to the Jews in Lostice to be taken to camps.

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As we visited the synagogue in Lostice today I was glad to hear that the community made a lot of effort to preserve and save the building and make it into an educational property. As I was taking in the information presented in the synagogue, I walked past a window and noticed the vast countryside surrounding Lostice. It made me think just how remote of a location we were in, yet the Nazis still went to extreme lengths to kill about 57 of the 59 Jewish residents. It also made me remember a story Mr. Barmore told us, about a child who was born from Jewish parents but the child was raised with a different family in the Ukraine, yet the Nazis still killed the baby and foster parents because it had “Jewish blood”. This was also nearing the end of the war, when the Nazis were losing badly. The disproportionate punishment that the Jews had to go through, is something that that impacts my view on just how bad the war and Holocaust was, seeing it from the other side, not only the Americans side.

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Today we went to the Lostice Synagogue. We learned about the history of the Jewish people in the area and saw the influence they had. A specific thing that stood out was the German influence on the people. Those in the community and other areas saw themselves as Germans and not as Jews. They were part of an area and not of just a religion. They still followed the religion but also had influence from the land.

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Today we visited the Lostice Synogague. Mr. Steepl told us all about the extensive history of it and how a huge issue arose in town when a law came about claiming that Jews were not allowed to live close to a Catholic church. This was a problem since the synogague and the church and the church were right next to each other, which is why they resides so close by. I feel as if this shows how the government did their best to make life for Jewish people inconvenient.

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Today we arrived at a Synagogue in Lostice. The building had just finished being renovated and was a beautiful sight to see. Inside were artifacts recovered from Olomouc when it was destroyed. Hanging on the walls were six glass windows and there were seats dedicated to those who perished, including belongings such as pictures, recipes, and glasses. After the Synagogue we drove to a Jewish Cemetary dating back to 1554. The oldest tombstones were written in Hebrew, since they identified as Jewish and nothing else. As the dates become more recent, many are written in German and Czech alone with Hebrew. I noticed that even though the cemetary was located in Czech Republic many of the Jews identified as German.

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Today, after a couple hours on the bus, we arrived in Lostice. There we went inside of the Lostice Synagogue learned about the history of the Jewish community in that area and Mr. Barmore pointed out the stained glass windows on the walls of the synagogue that were miraculously saved in the distruction of a synagogue in Olomouc that had German writing on them, which told us that the Jews in that place and time identified in German. We also saw the old Jewish cemetery in Lostice and when we saw that the older tombstones had only Hebrew writing on them, and the newer tombstones had both German and Hebrew writing, we continued the discussion about the changing of Jewish identity from the time that the cemetery was established in the 1500’s.

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Today we went to the old Jewish Cemetery in Lostice that was created in the 18th century. As I walked, there was one major difference between the gravestones stuck out to me; the writing on them. Some were written in Hebrew, others in Czech, and quite a few in German. The land the cemetery is on has belonged to different countries and so has its people, this means it’s people changed what they were too. One year they were Czech and the next they were German and years later they were Czech again, so they had to identify as whatever they felt they were to stay true to themselves. Most of the gravestones I saw today were either German or in strictly Hebrew. The jews that died in the Czech Republic still identified themselves as German. Much like the Jews in the early Holocaust period were being forced to leave but stayed and endured the discrimination because they always saw themselves as German and nothing else.

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Today, we visited a Jewish cemetery in Lostice. There was an interesting differentiation in the cemetery between the older tombstones and the newer ones. The older Jewish tombstones had inscriptions written in Hebrew and most of them incorporated multiple Jewish symbols. In contrast, the newer Jewish tombstones were mostly inscribed with German writing and incorporated very few Jewish images. In fact, Mr. Barmore mentioned that the new tombstones could almost be mistaken for Christian ones. The germanized tombstones were a representation of the assimilation of the Jews into German society; they not only accepted, but wanted to be a part of the greater community. For me, this physical manifestation of the Jewish

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Today we visited the Jewish Cemetery in Lostice. 85 was created in 1554 and has stayed located in the same spot since. As we walked through the cemetery there were certain distinctions that stood out to me. As you looked it was easy to tell the older tombs belonged to people who followed the Judaism religion strictly, but the more recent tombs belonged to people who identified as German or Czech Jews. The people who followed the Judaism religion strictly revolved their entire life around it whole others did not. This shows how over the years the Judaism religion began to lose most of their active followers because Jewish people needed a certain type of protection they could not receive. So in order to get the protection the needed and deserved, they had to drift away from their religion.

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Today we got on the bus and drove to Loštice, and went to a very old synogogue that was built in 1805. We sat in pews that were over 200 years old. Inside of each seat infront of you there was a small collection of items that signify families lives. There were photographs, cookie cutters, dictionaries, and buttons. I thought it was very touching and personal. We also visited a cemetery that was built in the 1500’s! The older headstones were written in Hebrew with very simple designs and symbols. We could tell that other graves were newer because they were designed differently and written in German.

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Today we visited the town of Loštice which has a beautifully restored synagogue and a Jewish cemetary. Somethings that stood out to me we’re the inscriptions on the graves. They ranged from the 18th century were all the graves had Hebrew on them. As time went on and borders/identities changed, with the newer graves the inscriptions were in German with a little bit of Hebrew. The Czech Jews saw themselves as fully assimilated Germans.

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Today we visited a small town called Lostice. While in Lostice we visited a Jewish temple that had a lot of history behind it. That temple had artifacts from another older church that was burned down by the Nazi’s in 1939. Also behind the benches there were 21 boxes all dedicated to families that were affected by the Holocaust. After the Synagogue we traveled to a Jewish cemetery from the 18th century. While at the cemetery we learned about how the Jewish people that had died and been buried here valued their religion. We learned that earlier in time Jews were devoted to Judaism and nothing else and that was shown with the hebrew headstones. But, as time continued on people became more religious and started to accept more German ways.