Prague Jewish Museum returns looted synagogue textiles to Greece

The Jewish Museum in Prague has returned a set of 39 synagogue textiles to Greece that were looted by the Nazis during the Second World War and brought to what is now Czech territory.

After the war the textiles were found in various locations across the country and later gathered in the Jewish Museum in Prague. They were formally handed over in Prague earlier this week to the director of the Jewish Museum of Greece, Zanet Battinou.

Many of the textiles date from the period after the great fire in Thessaloniki in 1917, which destroyed many synagogues, schools, rabbinical libraries and archives. The new textiles replaced ritual items lost in the blaze and commemorated those who died.

Some of the items still bear black markings added by the Nazis. The textiles were first taken to Berlin and later transferred in 1944 to the territory of the then Sudetenland under unclear circumstances.