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News: | 01.01.2012 | | Thanks to Mr. Schoenberg who sent us 15 000 dollars it was possible to finish all this year´s work. We are deeply obliged to him, thanks so much. |
News: | 06.11.2011 | |
Our synagogue will be opened in 2014, we will be able to continue in all the previous activities and finally return the building back to life we have succeeded in two projects this year - the Ministry of Culture.promoted the restoration of the frescoes in the main prey room as well as the drainage of the building necessary for the finishing of all the work. And EU Project of the Czech-Bavarian Cooperation will enable to open the renovated building completely!. With the parallel success in both the projects we were in a really difficult situation not being able to co-finance so much. After hard times of negotiating and asking for help we finally received a huge help from America. Thank so much! Currently it is continuing the restoration of the frescoes in the main prey room, where the illusive altar is. And also a restoration of the 1836 piano - there is a direct account number for this work 104403744 / 0600 ,
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Letters: | 05.10.2011 | | Dear Mr. Loeffler, allow me to send you some emails I got from my friend Alex Woodle, who´s been one of the first ones who helped with the synagogue, just as you have. You may read the Avoyatanu issue from the May 2008. It is on our web side, too. We are facing the problem to share so much money in one year, one for the Ministry of Culture, and the EU project. At the same time we are seeking money for the restoration of the 1836-year-old piano for the main room (in the origin winter prey room there will be an organ), origin Aron ha Kodeš both in the main and in the winter prey rooms, and finally the origin Ckyne Torah itself. I appreciate your effort in the EU project very much, I am sure it was your speech that turned the things in our favour. Please, will you be of any help again. You are heartily invited to see the reconstruction work on the frescoes in the main prey room, including the origin Aron ha Kodeš. It is running just now and will have been finished by the end of November. Dear Mrs. Bromova, Thank you for your interesting statement and thank you for your enormous commitment. We will support the synagogue in Ckyne this year as well, as in the previous years. Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best Regards,Hermann J. Loeffler
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News: | 05.10.2011 | | Dear Fellow Ckyners,
Happy New Year to all my fellow Ckyne descendants,
Many of you may be aware of the efforts put forth by the town of Ckyne to restore the synagogue our ancestors worshiped in since its completion in 1828 and up until its demise during WWII. Let me try to bring you up to date.
The gentiles in this small town and interested parties in the surrounding villages over the years have restored the Jewish Cemetery. They then turned their attention to saving the synagogue which had been neglected for years. They formed a restoration committee made up of religious business and civic leaders to try and raise funds to complete this project. Jindra Bromova who heads up this effort has worked tirelessly on trying to obtain funds. Until recently, they had succeeded in re-roofing and installing windows to preserve the building from further deterioration, started with restoration of the inside rooms including the frescoes and original Aron ha Kodeš in the main prey room. The winter prey room will be restored completely for the prayers. They have held concerts and other events within the synagogue walls to raise more money and increase the awareness of the historic value of this building and its lost Jewish history. The hope is to not only remember the Jews who lived in Ckyne, but to also provide a cultural venue for the whole region of South Bohemia and Bavaria, including an info-centre with the data of all important venues, activities, places of interest, and last but not least, the landscape itself. In 2009 I was able to donate a gift to help jump start and continue these efforts. The following year Jindra, after many years of trying, succeeded in receiving limited help from the Czech government. Then last year, another community just across the border in Bavaria together with Ckyne applied and qualified for a cultural grant from the European Union of 400, 000 Euros (over half a million dollars) to restore by 2014 the Ckyne Synagogue to be used as a historic and cultural venue. In addition the Ministry of Culture in the Czech Republic will also make a much needed grant of 1 million crowns of about $53,600. The catch here is that the municipality has to come up with some matching funds and they are about $16,300 short. They are desperately seeking donations in order to secure this money from the Ministry of Culture.
These are hard times for everyone, but I would hate to see this project fall apart. The deadline to raise these monies is the end of November. I am asking for your generosity to help raise these funds before we lose an opportunity to preserve our family's history through this restoration.
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News: | 04.10.2011 | |   In the autumn of last year, we successfully defended our participation in the project of the Ministry of Culture of Saving Our Architectural Heritage. For this year we have 900 000, - CZK. It was decided that both inspection work carried out last year and earlier fell to excellent - the synagogue has had all the windows and doors, internal water supply and finishing work as preparation of floors, walls and ceilings. Last year we also had to replace the entire gallery contested dry rot. The huge beams are new now and the floor ,which had been completely ruined, has been just decorated with exact copies of handmade nails.
The synagogue will be restored into a jewel of the Práche?ský County, how it was everywhere written in opening in the year 1828. Twenty years of immense effort and nerves are over. we have endured, and as fortune favors the prepared, we waited to see. The synagogue will be open in all its glory in 2014!
The EU project is collaboration with the Bavarian castle called Wolfstein, in Freyung . They were looking for a partner for the project under which there would be completely changed the existing unsatisfactory exposures. When they saw what had already been done in the synagogue; and also after meeting Mr. Loeffler, they decided for us. Mr. Loeffler has been our supporter from the very beginning. Since he started with the Loeffler Seaquest firm in Ckyne,, up to now being the President Food & Beverage in Europe. Mr. Loeffler t was talking about his childhood, when the border between Bavaria and Bohemia had not existed, opened to the shopping as well as visitors, and people on both sides had known about each other. This was true of the future, we would like to support through our project. Cultural, scientific and information center, where you can find all information about interesting happenings in the triangle of Vimperk, Prachatice Strakonice, Sumava and the Bavarian Forest, and Bavaria with the wider surrounding areas.
The amount of subsidies, which come from the EU is € 400 000. A further € 20 000 adds the Ministry for Regional Development, € 20 000 owner is involved - the community Ckyne, along with us. Of 900 000, - CZK from the Ministry of Culture is just being spent.And, this is really a big deal for this year, the Ckyne municipality is about to co-finance both the projects and pre finance the EU one for several months every time.
In the reconstruction of the building there are actually no changes or only minimal. We are trying to carry out a perfect restcration, in terms of appearance, and the content also remains - the synagogue is a place to meet!
When did you decide to get involved in the repair and what was the initial impetus?
I was born in Prague and used to lots of cultural activities. Then, in 1982, I found myself in the gray, cracked little town of Ckyne, where nothing happened. So I was going to the Sumava mountains. And walking to the train station in Ckyne I was passing a building with a dominant eye of God at the front. I became interested in it, met very interesting Jewish people, and professor Jan Podlesak. My fate was decided. At the very first I was still a member of the Protectors of Nature, we helped to fix the walls around the Jewish cemetery. That cemetery had been restoring by the professor Podlešák for many years literally from the ground. In 1995 we re-dedicated and opened it as the Society for Restoration of the Ckyne Synagogue (found 1991). The Ckyne municipality bought the synagogue from the Coop Vimperk, to which it was sold by the last owner Mr.Lederer several years before. We managed to get a contribution for the project of restoration. This was followed by a new roof, and then it was first of all necessary to remove the ceiling that divided the main prey room into two floors with flats upstairs and joinery workshop downstairs. The concrete floor of the workshop was necessary to remove too. Then the ceiling was repaired, too, and , in the year 2006, the community together with the help of local citizens and youths we adjusted the main rooms to open the great exhibition of the History of Ckyne in old photographs. There was almost everyone there, often even several times. We managed to get the building back to life. There were many concerts held, especially classical music sounds amazing there , as well as theatrical performances, lectures, poems. In 2008 we celebrated the 180th birthday of the synagogue, after 140 years the Torah was read there again!. All to prove that the synagogue belongs back into our lives. And it did. In 2009 we finally succeeded in the Ministry of Culture project , the reconstruction work started and has not stopped since. What about the future function of the synagogue?
I teach English, including the Sumava National Park, for nearly twenty years, I also interpreted at important meetings regarding the status of the park, I know intimately every stone there. So I was extremely pleased that our project “LANDSCAPE CONNECTS” is just about the nature in the context of contemporary life , with culture as a necessary component of life; and at the same time the last reminder of the phenomenon of Judaism as an important element of local affairs.
How much money did you manage to obtain in the past (from the beginning of the effort) and what money has already been fixed?
Exact numbers are stored in the financial reports, it is about 2 and a half million The building has a new roof and is free from subsequent adjustments ; it is completely ready to complete for the internal surfaces, the floors and ceilings and facade. We are going to agree on a project of interiors. The restoration of the frescoes is running, and drainage is partially ready It remains to finish the drainage, to restore the exterior and interior paving, fencing, garden and the well. In the yard there is a former coach garage, it will be the background of the synagogue. In the main prey room we will open a regional Jewish museum of South Bohemia, including the library and study rooms, as well as exhibition spaces, concert and lecture hall and an art gallery with a focus on common landscape region. Shows will include a common database of natural and cultural presentations of both countries, concerts, performances, discussions and lectures will contribute to increase interest in the common cross-border cultural heritage - the landscape.. |
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