THE TOWN of Modra in the Small Carpathians looked like this in the 1920s.
A synagogue stands about in the middle of the right side of the postcard. It was built only in 1902 and this is quite logical considering the history of Jews in this town. A true Jewish community was not established here until the 1870s; before then there were rarely more than a handful of Jewish families.
In 1860, Jews established a cemetery in Modra; before then their deceased relatives were buried in Častá, where the rabbi resided and where Modra Jews attended religious services.
Jewish monuments had a sad fate after World War II. It is not easy to tell if representatives of the communist regime enjoyed doing so but they regularly found quite different uses for Jewish sacred places. This synagogue in Modra was used as a warehouse. Fortunately, the synagogue survived its days as a storage depot and still stands today. But the Jewish cemetery in Modra was severely damaged by vandals in the 1960s.
