Prague - The Jewish Museum in Prague decided to track down names and lives of people whose portraits have been preserved in hundreds of photos dating back to the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and stored in the Museum.
The pictures document lives and activities of the Jewish community members under the occupation forces' administration during the World War II. There are approximately seven hundred of such photographs.
The captions of the pictures are very poor, though, often saying only "unknown man, unknown woman." In better cases a name is mentioned - Mr. Kohn or Mr Bondy - but not much more.
"Only some people are described in more detail. But it takes a lot of effort to track down the name of the person and what happened to him or her. For example, there were at least three Jiří Baums living in Prague at that time," says the Museum's web site.
Public can help
The Museum is now asking the public to help to discover the people's names and lives. The pictures displayed at the web site were taken between 1942 and 1945.
The idea to ask the public for help emerged from a thesis written by Martin Jelínek, student of museology at Brno's Faculty of Philosophy and employee of the Museum.
Jelínek disclosed an identity of a man called Viktor Schück, who was a photographer, born in October 1896. In July 1943 he was taken to Theresienstadt and in September 1943 to Auswitz where he died.
The Museum displayed the pictures of the unknown Jews in its corridors as well as at the web site last year. Since that time around twenty people have contacted Jelínek, having some kind of information.
"It is only general information, which we have to verify," says Jelínek.
But there was a woman who claims she recognized two of her cousins.
"The brothers Karel and Kurt Singer were taken to Theresienstadt. In October 1944 they were taken to Auswitz where they died," says Jelínek.
He added that two or three people in the published pictures are believed to be still alive.
