Secrets in the Attic

About this project

<p style="text-align: justify"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 12px">By implementing this project, we will contribute to the preservation, revitalization and presentation of finds that constitute an important part of the cultural heritage of the local Jewish community, yet remain almost unknown to the general public. Through cooperation and activities undertaken with local communities in East Bohemia and with students of Palacký University in Olomouc, we will try to strengthen the local community’s relationship of the local cultural heritage, and to increase students’ interest in the local Jewish heritage.</span></span></strong></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px">The aim of the project is to treat (conserve or restore), process (catalogue and digitize), place in permanent storage (in a renovated depository) and comprehensively present to the public (online and through exhibitions and accompanying programmes) an exceptional set of more than 3,000 finds from Bohemian and Moravian genizot in the Museum’s collection.</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px">We will make the finds available, including digital documents, through our own online web database of the collections of the Jewish Museum in Prague and through a profile on the international social media platform Historypin. We will bring these unique finds to the attention of the general public (by promoting the topic, specific genizah sites, finds and the project itself, as well as by organizing educational activities for&nbsp; professionals and the general public) via the Genizot.cz website and through two large exhibitions at regional museum institutions in East and West Bohemia, which are also partners to the project. We will produce a publication and in cooperation with the Norwegian project partner we will organize a workshop on the possibilities of using the movable cultural heritage assets of minorities for the purpose of educating the public.</span></p>

Bilateral cooperation results

The Norwegian partner "The Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies" co-organised a workshop for the professional public, museum educators and staff working with the museum public, thanks to which the professional competences of the staff of memory institutions in the field of mediating the cultural heritage of minorities to the general public were strengthened. Thanks to the cooperation with the partner, the knowledge of the staff and participants of the 2023 workshop on Norwegian research and education on the Holocaust, genocides, anti-Semitism and extremism was increased. The partner also participated in the preparation of the project, and a joint meeting was held in Prague in spring 2019. Currently, there is no specific joint project with the partner, however, close contact remains for the further cooperation.

Project partners

• The Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies Donor project partner· Norway
• Chrudim Regional Museum Project partner· Czechia
• Museum of West Bohemia Project partner· Czechia