The Gone Synagogue

The Gone Synagogue (GC1VBCR)

Type: traditional micro cache
Coordinates: N 49° 35.411 E 017° 15.047

This cache commemorates a beautiful structure reduced to ashes by Nazis on the first day of the German occupation of Czekoslovakia.
The construction of the synagogue was finished in april 1897 in comformity with the plan by renowned Viennesse architect Jakob Gartner. Jakob Gartner also designed some other synagogue in Vienna, Debrecen and Kromeríž.
Olomouc Jews bought a building plot on today´s Palach square, then named after the austrian empress Maria Theresia.  The statelines of the synagogue was emphasized by its oriental – byzantine style.

The synagogue was living its peaceful life till the crucial day of 15th march 1939. What exactly happened that day?
On the eve of 14th march lots of Germans took to the streets. The town was paralysed and even the town council trying to calm them down turned uneffective. In the morning the first motorized german troops reached Chválkovice. At 11 a.m. the occupation army headed by colonel Hard assumed all the political power over the town and organized a huge military parade. At about 10 p. m. an annoucement  of the synagogue being on fire was made to the fire brigade.
Petr Broch, then living nearby – in Havlícek street, witnessed the incident as an eight-year-old boy. He thought back:
„High flames surrounded the whole synagogue. Cracking and clinking of broken glass could be heard during the night. And everywhere there was a harsh smoke billowing from the synagogue.
Fifteen fire-brigades progressively reached  the place but the destruction couldn´t be avoided. The German army actually stopped the firefighters from doing their job. Soldiers let the synagogue on fire till afternoon.
„At first I could smell an awful stench of burnt wood. I couldn´t believe my eyes, almost everything was burnt down, the walls were black with smoke and flames. The heat even smashed the windows so I was worried the ceiling was going to fall down. I will never forget it,“ said Petr Broch who had come to the destroyed synagogue as one of the first.
According to the witnesses of contemporaries one of the German workers died when trying to get out a metal six-pointed star from the main dome. In fact a part of dome broke off and pulled the man down.
The fire of the synagogue represented an irredeemable loss but that was just a beginning. A few days later Nazis demolished the town hall of Jewish community in Lafayette street and even then abolished Jewish cemetery.
Almost 3 500 Olomouc Jews died of transports. Only less than 200 of them survived. Herbert Oppenheim, one of the victims and once closely connected with the synagogue, died in the concentration camp of Treblinka.
The montrous communist Stalin a Lenin memorial, at which Olomouc children wearing red pioneer scarves were forced to swear fealty to the socialist ideals, was pulled down during the Velvet revolution in 1989.

In 1994 the Jewish community restored back the whole place. Nowadays it rents it to the town as a parking place. To sort out the lack of parking places in Olomouc a construction of subterrestrial parking is being negotiated.
Eight windows and ten benches represent all that have been preserved from the synagogue. For a long time nobody was able to find out chat had happened to all the utilities of the synagogue. There were some speculations that the windows were transferred to Ukraine or that they can be found at some unknown Olomouc artisan´s who had managed to save them.
After november 1989 the Jewish community was trying to get the windows back but the alleged  offer to buy them at very steep price – 100 000 marks couldn´t be accepted. All that remains being a big secret...A memorial desk is placed on the building od the University Palacký Faculty of Science.



There is no pencil in the cache. It is freely accessible.
Waypoints: N 49° 35.423 E 017° 15.028 (parking)
Hint: Learn humility, man.

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