Prostějov (Prossnitz) Jewish Martyrs

Introduction by Nolan Altman and Joseph S. Lonstein

· Background
· Database
· Acknowledgements
· Searching the Database

Background

The small manufacturing city of Prostějov (called Prossnitz by the Germans) lies in southern Moravia, at 49°28' 17°07', approximately 20 kilometers southwest of Olomouc and 60 kilometers northeast of Brno.  Prostějov's Jewish presence began during the late 15th Century, and until the lifting of marriage restrictions on the Jewish population in the mid-1800s had the second largest Jewish population in Moravia (about 30% of the total population).  By 1900, some of the Jewish population in Prostějov had dispersed to other communities, and then totaled 1,680 people (7% of the total population).  In 1930, the Jewish population was 1,442.  In all, approximately 1,430 residents of Prostějov were killed by the Nazis, with over 1,200 of them Jewish.  The current population of Prostějov is almost 50,000, and the city has few if any Jews.  The old Jewish Quarter was almost entirely demolished in the early 1990s.

Two Jewish cemeteries exist in Prostějov, one founded in 1801 that is now unmarked and has no tombstones, and another founded in 1908 that contains at least 500 tombstones and has had some Jewish burials at least through the mid-1990s.  Within the "new" cemetery is a memorial to the Jewish martyrs from Prostějov who were murdered by the Nazis.  Memorial plaques in the cemetery were the source of the names for this database.

Database

The database consists of 1,220 names from the cemetery plaques.

Special Note: "Valter (Walter) Brossler", who is listed on the cemetery plaque, actually survived and was living in Tel Aviv until his death in 2002.

The fields in the database are as follows:

The following titles were used in the database:

Acknowledgments

The memorial plaques were photographed in August, 2004 by Joseph S. Lonstein and Stephen Thomas.  The names were transcribed from these photographs by Joseph S. Lonstein, with the assistance of Maud Beer (born Michal Stecklmacher in Prostějov, now living in Israel) who verified many of the names on this list from her own photographs of the memorial.

In addition, thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and database expertise to make this database accessible.  Special thanks to Susan King, Warren Blatt and Michael Tobias for their continued contributions to Jewish genealogy.  Particular thanks to the Research Division headed by Joyce Field and to Nolan Altman, coordinator of Holocaust files.

Joseph S. Lonstein
February, 2005

Searching the Database

This database is searchable via JewishGen's Holocaust Database.

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Last Update: 28 Feb 2005 by WSB