Czech Books Documenting the tragic human stories behind the Nazi confiscation of art in Bohemia and Moravia
The Museum of Applied Arts in Prague's Old Town houses some impressive collections, including porcelain, jewelry, clocks, furniture and costume. It is one of the city's most popular museums, and its collections bear witness to Central Europe's rich cultural history. But behind each exhibit there is also at least one human story, and a new book, called 'Navraty pameti' or 'bringing back memory' reminds us that these stories can sometimes be tragic. The book maps the several hundred artifacts in the museum's collections that had belonged to Jewish owners before the German occupation in World War Two. During the war, property belonging to anyone not considered racially pure was confiscated with an obsessive thoroughness, and the great majority of the rightful owners perished in the Holocaust.
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