Holocaust Torah

The Sefer Torah number 811 is one of the 1564 Czech Memorial Sifre Torah which formed part of the treasures which were saved by being collected in Prague during the Nazi occupation 1939-1945 from the desolated Jewish communities of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, and which then came under the control of the Czechoslovakian Government for many years. The Scrolls were acquired, with the help of good friends, from Artia (the Czechoslovakian State Cultural Agency) for Westminster Synagogue, where they arrived on the 7th February 1964. 

Some of the collection remain at the Memorial Scrolls Trust Museum, a permanent memorial to the martyrs from whose synagogues they come; many of them are distributed throughout the world, to be memorials everywhere to the Jewish tragedy, and to spread light as harbingers of future kinship on earth; and all of them bear witness to the glory of the holy Name.

This Scroll came from a congregation in Bohemia or Moravia sent to the Central Jewish Museum in Prague in 1942.
Exact location of origin is unknown. 

It is on permanent loan from the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London: www.memorialscrollstrust.org

Inside the Torah Cover

Information about the cover:
This cover was created by Clergy Associate Ronni Pressman.
The fabric is doubled with a quilting between the layers as if to blanket the scroll.
In designing the inside of the cover, many congregants that had lost family members during the holocaust,
scribed their names on small slips of rag paper and submitted photographs.
These were combined in a collage and printed to form a "space" where these 'souls' are blanketed and touching the scroll.