FPS is home to three of the 1,564 Czech scrolls that were rescued from communities in Bohemia and Moravia during WW2.
These scrolls were brought over in 1964 to Westminster Synagogue in London, where they were catalogued, repaired and restored where possible. Each scroll was given a numbered brass plaque to identify its origin, before being given to foster communities around the world.
Our scrolls come from Austerlitz (today Slavkov) and Kolodeje, but sadly we do not know where our small “orphan” scroll comes from.
These scrolls are very precious to us, and we read from them many times throughout the year. In 2016, we dedicated a new Torah binder; the second one that has been made specially for our Czech scrolls. These binders carry the names of new babies born into our community and form a living link with the lost Jewish communities of former Czechoslovakia.
Every spring we hold a special Czech Scroll service with music, stories and poetry to remember the remarkable story of the Czech scrolls and and honour the congregations they came from.
More information about the history of the Czech scrolls and their distribution around the world is available on the Memorial Scrolls Trust website.
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