Basic information
From the beginning of the 19th century until the 1930s, an orthodox house of prayer was in use in the Bělidla suburbs on private premises of the Fischel family (today house No. 9/44 in Libušina Street). But the relaxation of conditions and the growing Jewish population in the second half of the 19th century meant another house of prayer had to be established in the inner city. In 1895-1897, to satisfy the spiritual needs of the community, a synagogue designed by the famous Viennese architect Jakob Gartner was built on the site of former city walls, on the then emerging Maria Theresa Square (today Palach Square).
This spectacular work was built by local firms at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand guldens. The building was designed in the then fashionable oriental Byzantine style and made an impressive appearance – its dimensions were 22 × 39 meters and its height was 38 meters. The requirement for the east-west orientation of the temple couldn’t be fully respected in the given urban situation; thus, the axis is directed to the southeast.
The Olomouc synagogue was a freestanding building of a distinctively longitudinal plan aligned on the main axis. The interior layout was traditional: from the hall on the northwest there was an entrance for men to the vestibule and into the main hall on the ground floor, which had four pillars holding an iron cupola. A side staircase led to the first floor with the women’s seating area on a balcony along three sides of the hall. The hall ended with an elevated platform with a pulpit (almemar) and the Ark (Aron Kodesh) in the form of a small temple. An interesting feature, however, was a small daily house of prayer located beyond the Ark on the southeast side of the building – containing its own Ark and pulpit and 50 bench seats. The choir and organ were located on the floor above this room.
Architecturally, the synagogue interior was exceptionally ornate, with seating for 440 men and 304 women.
From the outside, attention was attracted by a large dome with a spire and two further turrets on each corner of the frontage. The facade of two-colored fair-faced brickwork was punctuated with windows featuring rosettes and other delicately detailed patterns derived from typically romantic oriental motifs. The gable end above the entrance from Maria Theresa Square was topped by stone tablets bearing the Ten Commandments, while the rear elevation overlooked Lafayette Street.
The synagogue was officially consecrated on April 11th, 1897.
Immediately after the Nazi occupation, during the night of March 15th to 16th, 1939, the synagogue was burnt down by local fascists. Some 15 fire brigades fought in vain to put out the fire, and the cost of the damage was officially put at one million crowns. Debris was cleared in the winter of 1939-40.
The site was later turned into a small park, whose centre was"decorated" by stone statues of Lenin and Stalin during the period of communist rule; the area is a parking lot today. On March 7th, 1990 a memorial plaque, the work of architect Zdeněk Hynek and sculptor Zdeněk Přikryl, was unveiled near the site of the burned synagogue on what is now Palach Square, on the facade of the adjoining Faculty of Sciences, Palacký University.
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