Czech Culture Minister Pavel Dostal insists that he
was trying to show respect for Jewish tradition,
but the commotion over the unearthed graves, and
his writings about Orthodox Jews, have raised the
stakes in the battle over the relics in an
abandoned medieval Jewish cemetery in Prague.
In the meantime, there were imbroglios over the
site on Vladislavova Street, which was purchased by
the Czech insurance company Ceska Pojistovna. A
deal reached last March for preserving the site
while permitting construction appears to have
fallen through. Under the terms of that agreement,
the remains would be entombed in a sarcophagus
below the site.
One issue concerned the company's plan to use some
exterior space at the site for an open-air theater.
"We said this was not acceptable to us," said Tomas
Kraus, director of the Czech Jewish Federation.
"That collapsed the agreement. They immediately
started the project, then damaged other graves."
Another issue is whether a religious ceremony can
be held next month, when the unearthed remains are
scheduled to be reburied at their original site.
The unearthed bones have been stored in the chapel
of the new Jewish cemetery. The Jewish community
insists on a traditional burial.
"This could be done elegantly. From the technical
side, there is no problem," Kraus said. "The
problem is the ceremony. We are the Jewish
community. We have to keep the minimum rituals of
the Jewish faith.
"However, what is a religious site to the Jewish
community is an archeological site to the Czechs.
"I am not here to allow or ban a religious
ceremony," Dostal said in an interview, but added.
"In no case can this be a burial."
Burials he said, are for cemeteries, and
Vladislavova Street is a building site. "Any
religious ceremony cannot change the status of the
site. It will not make the site a cemetery." He
warned that if people demonstrate and enter the
site, they will be "dealt with according to Czech
law."
In the last six
months, there has been a media campaign and
Orthodox demonstrations to preserve the site.
There originally was public sympathy for preserving
the site, but that has vanished. Dostal called the
pressure by the Orthodox Jews "counterproductive."
"We are continually pushed into the corner, with
new requirements. Some Czech citizens started to
write letters and on the Internet that I was giving
in to the world Jewish community," he said. "Due to
this whole media campaign, antisemitic forces
started to be active in the Czech Republic again."
Dostal said he wrote in a Czech newspaper to
indicate that "it would be wrong if we were against
the whole Jewish community because of these
Orthodox rabbis. [But the article backfired and]
the impact was horrible. I learned that I was one
of the greatest Czech antisemites and racists."
Czech President Vaclav Havel was quoted in the
New York Times as saying, "The important
thing for me is that this government has the will
to seek a solution."
Under an earlier agreement, the government will pay
45 million Czech crowns and the company will pay 60
million crowns to encase the remains from the
cemetery in a sarcophagus.
Dostal says that had he simply observed Czech law,
"by now the bones would be transferred to another
cemetery and the budget of the Ministry of Culture
would not be 45 million crowns lower."
Of its 4.7 billion crown budget, the ministry
spends 1 billion crowns to support church-related
activities, including those of the Jewish
communities.
