The pictures come back: Ústí nad Labem

Jewish life in Ústí nad Labem¹ developed from 1848, after the Jewish population was allowed to settle there.² In 1863, the Jewish "Kultusverein" was founded locally, which in the same year acquired a plot of land at "Wallgasse 154" to build a synagogue.³ It was built in 1880 and extended at the beginning of the 20th century.⁴

After the occupation of Bohemian territories by German Wehrmacht in 1938, the synagogue was destroyed. Only the outer walls and the ground floor of the building survived the fire. A butcher's shop and a hostel were built on the remains of the building in 1940, which were heavily damaged during the bombing in 1945.⁵ After the Second World War, a bus station was built on the place and the surrounding areas. A public toilet came on the former location of the synagogue, in its cellar.⁶ In the following years, the location was dismantled and turned into a lawn. At the beginning of the 21st century, the entire area was built over with the "Forum" shopping centre, which opened in 2009.⁷

As the Jewish community of Ústí nad Labem was greatly reduced due to persecution under National Socialism and further diminished in the decades that followed, there was no reconstruction or new building of a synagogue.

There are no postcards with the Ústí nad Labem synagogue as a single motif.

Significant in the depiction of the building was the perspective from the "Větruše"¹ vantage point south of the city centre, from where most historical and commercial total views of the city were taken. From this perspective, the synagogue was in the front row of the city skyline until its destruction in 1938 and should have been part of most views. In fact, however, the synagogue is obscured, cropped or not part of the motif on most of the picture postcards from the Větruše vantage point. The selection published here focuses on postcards with the synagogue depicted or the area of its former location.

Since pictorial motifs of postcards often recurred over years or decades and purchased cards were used later, in some cases the pictorial motifs do not correspond to the actual urban planning situations at the time of sending. The difference is striking in the case of Ústí nad Labem, as the synagogue destroyed in 1938 is still depicted on the cards sent between 1938 and 1945.