Jewish Cemeteries in Prague and Nagasaki: A Comparison

Parts of the former Jewish quarter of Josefov in Prague, Czech Republic remain beautifully intact, including several synagogues, a Jewish cemetery said to be the oldest in Europe, and antiquated buildings housing the Jewish Museum of Prague. Nazi forces demolished much of Josefov after occupying Prague in 1939 but spared the cemetery and a few other structures, apparently intending to use them as reminders of an "extinct race."  Most of the Jewish inhabitants meanwhile were evacuated to the Terezin concentration camp and later to Auschwitz and other death camps.

I visited the museum and cemetery one sun-washed morning in late August this year.  Among the displays in the museum were drawings done by children on their way to and in the concentration camps, brightly colored at first but increasingly dark and desperate.  The cemetery, which visitors pass on their way out of the complex, is remarkable for its hundreds of gravestones of varying age literally squeezed together and piled on top of each other to save space.  It was here that I noticed connections with Nagasaki.

Although not widely known, Nagasaki had a small but prosperous Jewish community around the turn of the 20th century.  Jews of various nationalities including Russia, Austria, Romania and Turkey began to arrive here after the Meiji Restoration of 1868.  Many opened bars, tailor shops and stores on the back streets of the foreign settlement; others like Morris Ginsburg and Sigmund Lessner established successful businesses and contributed to the development of Nagasaki as an international port.

In 1892, Ginsburg led the Jewish community in purchasing space for a Jewish burial ground in the newly opened Sakamoto International Cemetery.  The plot was located at a prime location near the cemetery entrance and featured a distinctive stone gate and walls with a cast-iron fence.  The number of burials increased in proportion to Nagasaki's activity as a port, so rapidly in fact that the plot, just like the Jewish cemetery in Prague, became full and any new gravestone had to be placed in the aisles or between existing gravestones.

Nagasaki was also the site of Japan’s first synagogue.  In September 1896, Sigmund Lessner joined with Haskel Goldenberg and other prominent Jewish entrepreneurs in establishing the Beth Israel Synagogue at No.11 Umegasaki, a single-story brick building featuring Japanese-style ceramic roof tiles and distinctive pear-shaped window awnings.  The synagogue bustled with residents and visitors during the busy years around the turn of the century.  In 1901, Lessner also founded local branches of the Jewish Benevolent Society and the Anglo-Jewish Association.

It was war, not religious or racial intolerance as in Europe, that sent the Jewish community of Nagasaki into decline.  Morris Ginsburg and his brothers, who held Russian passports, had to suspend their business activities and leave Japan during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5.  Sigmund Lessner faced a similar ordeal during World War I because he was an Austrian national and therefore labeled an "enemy" by both the Japanese and British governments.  

Lessner managed to revive his store and auction business after the war, but his sudden death in 1920 -- along with other factors including the rising cost of living in Japan and Nagasaki's decline as a venue for foreign trade -- precipitated a sharp drop in the number of Jewish residents.  By 1924, most of the Jewish businesses in the port had closed.  The Beth Israel Synagogue came under the administration of a Jewish organization in Shanghai and was sold off and converted into a warehouse.  By the time the atomic bomb explosion smashed windows and tore tiles off the rooftops of the Umegasaki neighborhood, few people even remembered the original function of the odd-looking building.

Today, the former Jewish quarters of Prague and other European cities are gone, and the descendants of the people who thrived and suffered there are scattered around the world.  In Nagasaki, the only reminder of the former Jewish community is a few inscriptions on gravestones in Sakamoto International Cemetery -- and the stories tucked away in the heart of an international port.

The old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, Czech Republic.

The Jewish section of Sakamoto International Cemetery in Nagasaki, seen from the rear.  Like its counterpart in Prague, the plot is congested with gravestones.  At the front is a gate with an inscription in Hebrew and the year 5653, equivalent to 1892, carved on one of the pillars.

(Left) A gravestone in the old Jewish Cemetery of Prague shows a pair of hands carved in relief, a symbol of priestly blessing.  (Right)  The same symbol is evident on a gravestone in the Jewish section of Sakamoto International Cemetery in Nagasaki.

The Beth Israel Synagogue was built in the rear portion of No.11 Umegasaki in 1896, the first Jewish place of worship in Japan.  The single-story brick building (right) had high shuttered windows with characteristic pear-shaped awnings.

Woodblock print by Nagasaki artist Tagawa Ken (1906-1967) depicting the former Beth Israel Synagogue in Umegasaki.  Tagawa was fascinated by the buildings of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement, abandoned but still exuding the atmosphere of an age gone by.

After being sold off by auction in 1924, the former synagogue was used as a warehouse until finally falling to the wrecker's hammer in the 1960s.  All that remain today are a few of the stone structures nearby: the stairs leading up the hillside and parts of the gutter and embankment wall to the left.

Small bronze plaque implanted on the sidewalk in front of a house on a busy shopping street in Amsterdam.  A man named Abraham Bilderbeek lived there with his family until being arrested by the Nazi Gestapo and dragged to the Auschwitz death camp -- for what possible crime or infraction?

Your writer walking in front of Anne Frank House on the Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam in early September 2012, trying to figure the whole thing out.

Nostalgia Britannica

The former British Consulate, completed in 1908, is one of 29 "Nationally Designated Important Cultural Assets" in Nagasaki city.  The 1992 designation ensured the physical preservation of the property but did not extend to the surrounding neighborhood.  As a result, the former consulate has become like "The Little House" in the famous Virginia Lee Burton story that sinks into the grime and shadow of urban sprawl.   Large-scale groundworks have erased the original line of the harbor, and the once narrow waterfront street is now a six-lane thoroughfare roaring day and night with traffic.  All of the other Western-style buildings that faced the harbor during Nagasaki's heyday as an international port are gone, leaving the consular buildings and gardens like an oasis of history hidden among a discordant cluster of modern office buildings, condominiums and hotels.

The former Nagasaki British Consulate (center, behind the trees) is surrounded by modern buildings and a wide thoroughfare.

Picture postcard (taken from approximately the same angle ca 1910) showing the British Consulate with old Western-style buildings on the left and right.

Launched in rented rooms at the Buddhist temple Myogyoji in 1859, the Nagasaki British Consulate was the first established in Japan after the opening of the country in the dying years of the Edo Period.  The consulate moved to a new building on the hillside at No.9 Higashiyamate in 1865 and watched over the development of the foreign settlement and the emergence of the city as a hub for commercial and cultural exchange.  The consulate moved again in 1882, this time to No.6 Oura, a prime location on the waterfront "Bund" in the center of the foreign settlement.  The British Commissioner of Works purchased the property two years later and acquired the perpetual lease.  Nagasaki enjoyed a golden age of prosperity between the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) and Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), and the British decided to demolish the old wooden building and to erect a new building that would better reflect the British presence in the region.

William Cowan, a government architect employed in the Office of Works in Shanghai, submitted plans for the new building in 1906.  Trouble ensued -- the local companies contracted to carry out the work failed to observe deadlines and constantly demanded more money -- but the new consulate began operation in November 1908 and went on to become a familiar landmark on the Nagasaki waterfront.

The Union Jack flies in front of the Nagasaki British Consulate ca 1912.  The consulate boat is hoisted on the seawall to the right,  and a flight of steps leads down to the water from the street. 

Visitors entered the compound through one of the two front gates and opened the front door into the main building.  To the right of the entrance vestibule was the public area comprised of a large drawing room and dining room; to the left was the administrative section including a waiting room, offices of the consul and assistant, storage space and closets for archives, stationery and utensils.  Each of the main rooms featured an English-style coal-burning fireplace with a decorative wooden mantel and iron canopy.  The consul and his family lived in the second floor rooms of the main building, including four bedrooms and a study, bathroom and antechambers.  Out the back door was a long single-story building with a boiler room, coal shed, kitchen and servants’ quarters flanked by gardens.  The two-story building at the rear of the property was separated into two parts: one a Western-style brick structure that served as living space for the British assistant and shipping clerk, the other a wooden building with rows of tatami-matted compartments and other facilities for Japanese employees and their families.

(Then) The daughters of Nagasaki Consul Oswald White frolic (in their father's clothes) in the garden behind the main building of the consulate ca 1922.  (Now) The site remains remarkably unchanged, although a layer of concrete has been applied to the back wall of the main building.  (Photograph by Saya Burke-Gaffney) 

The last consul, Ferdinand C. Greatrex, assumed the post in 1929 and kept the consulate functioning -- like a captain refusing to budge from the helm of a sinking ship -- until December 8, 1941 when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and military police surrounded the premises and placed Greatrex and his wife under house arrest.  The couple remained in Nagasaki until being repatriated by exchange ship in July 1942.  Greatrex's last request was that his savings and personal belongings in Japan be transferred to Konishi Kizo, his faithful former Japanese employee and the last remnant of the consular staff.

During World War II, the buildings stood abandoned and forlorn on the Nagasaki waterfront, but, despite the hatred directed at Britain and its allies, they were not vandalized or defaced.  In fact the greatest damage was inflicted by the atomic bomb, which exploded about five kilometers to the north but smashed in windows and crushed part of the roof.

After the war, the former consulate underwent superficial repairs but remained unused until 1955, when the British government sold the property in its entirety to Nagasaki City.  Over the ensuing years, the buildings housed the Nagasaki Children's Science Museum and later the Noguchi Yataro Art Gallery.  The latter closed in 2007, and the building was left -- once again in its century-long history -- closed and empty in the midst of a changing cityscape, waiting for the repairs and earthquake-proofing planned by the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs.

The date of completion is still unclear, but it is hoped that, this time around, the former consular premises will be used to convey information about the role of the British consulate in the boom years of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the life and work of former consuls, and the contributions made by British residents to the industrial, economic and cultural development of Nagasaki.

To conclude, a few photographs:

The former Nagasaki British Consulate was being used as an art gallery before closing in 2007.  It is currently awaiting repairs and reinforcement work. 

Satellite photograph of the former Nagasaki British Consulate (blue box). 

The former Nagasaki British Consulate premises seen from the rear.  The brick building on the right accommodated the British assistant and shipping clerk, while the wooden building to the left served as living quarters for Japanese employees and their families.  The 1992 designation of the consulate as an "Important Cultural Asset" was based to a large extent on the excellent overall preservation of the property, including subsidiary buildings, stone walls and other structures. 

The entrance and gardens have changed little despite the passage of time and the roller-coaster ride of history.

The entrance vestibule seen from the inner staircase.

The fireplaces in each of the main rooms remain in remarkably good condition.  The mantlepiece in the former assistant's office bears the insignia "EviiR," an abbreviation for "Edward VII Regis."  King Edward VII was the reigning British monarch in 1908, the year the Nagasaki British Consulate reached completion. 

Tea Whisk Monument

Walk along the streetcar tracks from JR Nagasaki Station, turn left at the corner near the Sakura-machi streetcar stop, and climb the hillside.  You'll pass a tree-shaded park on your left and come to a narrow flight of stone steps extending up into the graveyards on the upper part of the hill.  Most Japanese cities hide their graveyards in temple compounds or suburban reien ("spirit gardens"), but Nagasaki's cemeteries sprawl conspicuously across the hillsides right above the city, as if to remind the populace of the impermanence of life.

Turn right and continue along the street for another 100 meters or so and you'll find yourself in front of the brooding sanmon (gate building) of a Buddhist temple.  Up the steps and through the gate and you're in a different realm: you're finished with cars and crosswalks, freed from haste and noise, invited into a hidden corner of Nagasaki mostly unchanged by time.

Shofukuji, literally meaning "Temple of Holy Happiness," was established in 1677 by Tesshin (1641-1710), the son of a Chinese merchant of Nagasaki and his Japanese wife.  Tesshin entered the Buddhist priesthood at the age of 14 and studied under a Chinese master of the Obaku Zen sect before traveling to Mampukuji Monastery in Uji near Kyoto to clarify his "view."

Many of the old Obaku Zen temples in Nagasaki, often referred to as akadera or "red temples" because of their red paint and other Chinese features, are tourist attractions stormed by thousands of people every year, but Shofukiji has managed to stay off the beaten track and to maintain its traditional if slightly dog-eared appearance and atmosphere.  No one collects a fee at the gate or interferes with visitors.  You climb the old steps past the Tennoden inner gate building -- where a wooden statue of Hotei the "laughing Buddha" relaxes in an altar-like cubicle -- and emerge into a grassy courtyard in front of the main hall.  To the right is an arched stone gate leading into the temple living quarters; to the left a two-story structure with a bell tower above and a Zendo (meditation hall) below, the latter now used as storage space.

The main hall, erected in 1678 and refurbished in 1715, is a beautiful example of the Chinese-style temple architecture that sprang up in Nagasaki in the middle of the 17th century when Chinese mariners and merchants accounted for about one-sixth of the city population.  It is also one of the most enduring, having withstood not only three centuries-worth of wind and rain but also the blast and heat generated by the atomic bomb in 1945.

Steps lead up to the Tennoden, the inner gate to Shofukuji where a statue of Hotei greets visitors with a welcoming laugh.

The main hall at Shofukji exhibits typical features of Obaku architecture, including the red banister encompassing the porch and the front doors with illustrations of peaches. 

Look to the left of the main hall and you see a small garden enclosed by a bamboo fence and, inside, a rather odd cenotaph.  You can make out the Chinese characters 茶筅塚 engraved on the base, that is, chasenzuka or "tea whisk monument."  Sure enough, the weathered stone sculpture of about one meter in height installed on the base is shaped like the bamboo whisk used in the Japanese tea ceremony.

Some observers might interpret this as a signpost for the tea ceremony or perhaps a tribute to a great tea master of the past.  Others might take it for an eccentric work of art, like a statue of a spoon or fork installed in a park somewhere.  Fundamentalists might denounce it as evidence of superstition: What, after all, could a lowly kitchen utensil have to do with faith or worship?

The chasenzuka (tea whisk monument) at Shofukuji.

But of course all of these miss the point.  The sculpture is an expression of gratitude to the tea whisk, the little bamboo tube that is meticulously split halfway into dozens of fine prongs that are then pulled apart with cotton string into two rows forming a perfect bell-shape.  Years of training and hours of effort go into each handmade tea whisk.  To the sajin (tea ceremony practitioner), the tea whisk is not only an indispensable tool but also a symbol of the worldview underpinning the art of chanoyu, namely the appreciation of transcendent beauty in simple things.    

No matter how reverently the practitioner uses it, the tea whisk easily wears down and needs to be replaced.  But instead of exile to the garbage can, the countless teas whisks retired in Nagasaki every year are collected and burned during a ceremony in front of the monument at Shofukuji.  The Japanese term applied to this custom is kuyō, which originates from the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit word puja, meaning "offering."  In the Indian tradition the word usually refers to offerings to religious deities and distinguished guests, but the Japanese term includes expressions of gratitude to inanimate objects and non-human species to which people are -- or consider themselves to be -- deeply indebted.  In the former case this could be a tool used in traditional arts; in the latter case, insects killed in the process of agriculture or mice used in medical experiments.

In short, the tea ceremony practitioners simply cannot discard a tea whisk without thought or regret.  Thus, they built a monument and hold a yearly ceremony.

The consumer society of industrialized countries, including modern Japan, generates mountains of garbage every year in the form of wasted food, single-use packaging, and a spectacular array of products tossed away without the slightest hesitation.  The whole system is geared to mass production, mass consumption and mass waste, regardless of the looming problem of resource depletion and environmental degradation.

More people should walk up the hillside to Shofukuji and contemplate the tea whisk monument. 

Ghost Island, Revisited

In 1986, four years after settling in Nagasaki, I told my Japanese friends that I wanted to visit the former coal-mining island of Hashima.  Many of them drew a complete blank, even when I used the better-known nickname "Battleship Island." Others laughed and tried to convince me to give up the idea because all I would find there was a cluster of empty, rotting buildings.

  

I went anyway (thanks to another friend with a boat), fascinated by the story of a tiny island once inhabited by the most densely populated community on Earth but abandoned 12 years earlier when oil replaced coal in national energy schemes.  The article I wrote in the wake of the experience, entitled "Hashima: The Ghost Island," can be seen here and a shortened but illustrated version here.

A quarter of a century has passed since that first visit.  In the interim, one typhoon after another has swept up the East China Sea, battering the island with winds and high waves, gouging holes in the sea wall, ripping out foundations, and washing away wooden structures and other remnants of human habitation.

  

The following photographs taken in 1986, juxtaposed with photographs of the same sites taken during a visit in 2010, demonstrate the mighty erasing power of natural forces.

A row of shops on Hashima's former shopping street,
broken down in 1986, eradicated in 2010.

Setoguchi Barber Shop was still relatively intact in 1986.
Below, the same spot photographed in 2010.

Erosion is not the only thing changing Hashima's profile.  The present owner, Nagasaki City, has decided to turn the island into a tourist attraction, quite an irony considering the long years of indifference and neglect.  Visitors willing to fork out ¥3,900 can now go ashore and stand on a fenced-off concrete walkway -- jarringly white against the grimy backdrop of crumbling buildings -- and view the devastation from a safe distance.  Hashima has also been added to a list of tentative world heritage sites, another way in which local government and civilian interests hope to cash in on the notoriety while supposedly preserving the island for the benefit of future generations.

But the beauty of Hashima lies in its decay.  The best it offers is a lesson on the transience of human projects and a glimpse into the future of unsustainable development.

This mosaic graces the wall of the vestibule in the former Hashima Elementary and Secondary School.  Crafted by pupils, it exudes the sense of prosperity and optimism that predominated in the 1950s when the island population reached a peak of over 5,200 people.  I photographed it in 1986, struck by its expression of love and pride and its symbolism for humankind.  When I revisited Hashima in 2010 I was astonished to find it virtually unchanged, protected from wind and rain by the thick concrete walls and overhang of the vestibule. 

Thoughts on the Peace Statue

Since the 2011 atomic bomb commemoration is imminent, I will start this blog with a few thoughts on Nagasaki's "Peace Statue."

The work of Kitamura Seibo (a native of Nagasaki Prefecture lauded as one of Japan’s greatest sculptors), the ten-meter-tall bronze statue was unveiled in Nagasaki’s Peace Park on the 10th anniversary of the atomic bombing in 1955.  It is now the site of the annual (August 9) “Peace Ceremony” and an iconic expression of Nagasaki’s “aspiration for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of lasting world peace.”

The Nagasaki Peace Statue soon after construction in 1955 and today.

The official explanation is that the right hand of the statue points up to the explosion of the atomic bomb while the left hand, extended horizontally, symbolizes peace.  The figure is touted as an East-West hybrid, but you don’t need a degree in art history to recognize it for what it is: a clumsy approximation of a Greco-Roman deity.  At the time of construction, only three years had passed since the Treaty of San Francisco and Japan’s escape from the doghouse after World War II, and the people of this country were busy rebuilding their lives, looking to the United States for both material assistance and socio-cultural models.  Going along with the rhetoric that the atomic bombings had been necessary to end the war was probably Japan’s natural choice under these circumstances.  But the Peace Statue seems glaringly incongruent, paying tribute to the civilization that deliberately dropped atomic bombs on two cities populated mostly by noncombatants.

When I have visitors from abroad, I invariably take them to the small park across the street where the atomic bomb hypocenter is marked by a simple black monolith.  This leaves all the rest to reflection.

I personally dislike the month of August in Nagasaki because the flimflam about “peace” is as hard to avoid as the sweltering heat.  Activists gather from far and wide to wave their peace signs and push their respective political agendas; local television channels broadcast peace-related programs; and Nagasaki school children are required to give up their summer holidays to engage in peace studies.

But the parades, programs and classwork ironically emphasize just the opposite of peace, that is, the horror of the atomic bombing and the tragedy of World War II (not Japan’s aggression in East Asia mind you).  Nagasaki and Hiroshima undoubtedly have a huge emotional investment in this issue and an important role in conveying the reality of the atomic bombings to the world, but characterizing the noise of August as “peace activities” is as inaccurate as it is distracting.

The idea, trotted out repeatedly, that the abolition of nuclear weapons will lead to world peace is also absurd.  Even in the unlikely event that the nuclear states dismantle all existing nuclear weapons, humankind will still be stuck with, and have to carefully manage, the technology.  Maintaining peace is like trying to balance a baseball bat on your hand: you have to be vigilant and make constant adjustments to keep it upright.

I prefer to use the Japanese term buji when defining the concept of peace.  It literally means “no thing” but is better translated as “nothing particularly worthy of note” – no war, no peace, no Peace Statue, only normal everyday existence.