Czech Republic: TAMUS Tachov 2022 annual report highlights Jewish cemetery documentation — and QR codes

(JHE) — In 2022, the  Tachov Archives and Museum Society (TAMUS), a Czech non-profit NGO deeply involved in documenting and preserving Jewish cemeteries and other sites, carried out detailed photo documentation of four Czech Jewish cemeteries and launched a QR code system to read headstones in another cemetery.

In its  Annual Report for 2022, TAMUS also highlighted other activities, including public lectures on Jewish cemeteries,  publications, and educational work.

It said detailed photographic documentation was completed in the Jewish cemeteries in Čáslav  (208 gravestones); Golčův Jeníkov (1,064 gravestones, the oldest from 1685); and Police u Jemnice (272 gravestones, the oldest from 1680). Documentation was completed in six of the 12 sections of the Jewish cemetery in Mladá Boleslav (around 2,000 gravestones in the entire cemetery).

A QR code system was installed in the Jewish cemetery in Nové Sedliště, which has 256 gravestones — the oldest from 1697. The codes were not placed directly on the stones, but on small posts inserted into the ground at the base of the stone.

Similar to the QR code system installed at the Jewish cemeteries in Eisenstadt, Austria, visitors can scan the code with their smart phones and access the epitaph and translation, from an online database.

The cemetery in Nové Sedliště is one of six Jewish cemeteries where TAMUS has installed a metal box with a guest book, where visitors can leave comments. The Annual report said that in 2022 there had been “great response” to this initiative.

Access the 2022 TAMUS Annual Report