I have returned from Prague. While there, I met with Zuzana Bernakova
of Matana, the organization that cares for the Jewish cemeteries. Rabbi
Chaim Koci also attended on behalf of the Prague Jewish community. They
have a database of 20,000 (or 27,000?) graves from the new Jewish
cemetery in Olsany. We could not discuss the databases for the other
Prague cemeteries, since those are controlled by the Jewish Museum of
Prague and Daniel Polakovic did not make it to the meeting.
The bottom line is that Matana would like to set up its own internet
database, similar to the one set up by the Jewish community of Vienna at
http://friedhof.ikg-wien.at/search.asp?lang=en. The data is ready to
go and could be made available quickly. They do not want to share the
data with JewishGen/JOWBR or GenTeam. They are asking for our help to
raise 15,500 Euro ($21,035) to pay for the work. I am not sure if this
is the cost of setting up the new internet site, or if it is an attempt
to recoup the costs of making the database, or both. Also it may be an
attempt to raise funds to allow them to put other cemetery databases
online. Matana is responsible for maintaining over 400 Bohemian and
Moravian cemeteries.
I asked Zuzana to give us her plan for the future, how much would be
required to add data from other cemeteries.
On October 9, the Jewish Community meets to discuss this, so she asked
for a quick answer.
I would welcome a discussion and thoughts from our members. To date, we
have only spent our AustriaCzech SIG funds to help the Czech State
Archives digitize records in its collection which are being made
available on www.badatelna.cz.
Randy Schoenberg
Los Angeles, CA
