Before World War II's Nazi invasion, Czechoslovakia's Jews numbered almost 200,000. Following the Nazi relocations to death camps, only between 10,000 and 12,000 survived. That means the death and murder of about 95% of the Jewish population..

Jews in Prague had often been mistreated for centuries. They had been ghettoized into a small area within the Old Town. Within this several-square-block enclave, they created their own culture and carried on lives that were, at once, a part of the city and simultaneously quite separate.

Today, the Jewish Museum comprises several surviving synagogues, including the Old New Synagogue, which dates from the 13th century and is Europe's oldest active synagogue. Also included is the old Jewish Cemetery, where the Jews buried their dead for several hundred years. The graves here are up to 10 layers thick. Since the population was contained within the walls of the ghetto, there was no place else to bury deceased members of the community.

Several artifacts were left in Prague by the Nazis, who envisioned a museum to the extinct culture of Judaism to be built in Prague after the war. In a macabre twist, some of these artifacts are today providing a memorial for the Jews in a way that is not unlike the Nazis planned. There are also collections of pictures drawn by children who were housed at the Terezin concentration camp, an hour's ride north of Prague. Almost all of Terezin's occupants eventually were executed.

The photographs contained here can speak for themselves. Be certain to read the captions included with them. The pictures show a sanitized set of buildings and artifacts. But all of them stands as a sad testimonial to the people who were herded from their homes never to be heard from again. Prague and the descendents of those who remain insist on maintaining a memorial and a living legacy in hopes never repeating such an atrocity.