The Klausen Synagogue is the largest surviving synagogue in the former Jewish Old Town in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Patrick Comerford
This is the Fourth Week of Easter, and we are half-way through the 50-day season of Easter today.
Before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection. Following our visit to Prague earlier this month, I am reflecting each morning this week in these ways:
1, Short reflections on a synagogue in Prague;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Inside the Klausen Synagogue in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The Klausen Synagogue, Prague:
During our visit to Prague last month, I visited about half-a-dozen or so of the surviving synagogues in Josefov, the Jewish Quarter in the Old Town in the Czech capital.
Despite World War II, most of the significant historical Jewish buildings in Prague were saved from destruction, and they form the best-preserved complex of historical Jewish monuments in the whole of Europe.
The Jewish Quarter has six synagogues, as well as the Jewish Ceremonial Hall and the Old Jewish Cemetery.
The Klausen Synagogue is a 16th-century baroque synagogue and the largest surviving synagogue in the former Jewish ghetto, and it is also a single example of an early Baroque synagogue in the area.
This complex was known as Klausen, a German term derived from the Latin claustrum, meaning a closed space.
Mordechai Maisel, a renowned businessman who had found favour in the Habsburg court and who was the great benefactor of the ghetto, acquired the site from its Christian owners in the late 16th century. He used part of the site to extend the Jewish Cemetery, and in 1570, he set about building a complex in the area of the present synagogue that included synagogues and a private Talmudic school.
Prague’s famous rabbi and scholar, Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known affectionately to this day as Maharal, taught at this school.
During the great fire that devastated the Prague ghetto in 1689, all the buildings in the Klausen were destroyed, and the new synagogue built on the site is named after them.
Shelomo Khalish Cohen, a rabbi of the burned-down synagogue in the Klausen complex, initiated the building of a new synagogue in early baroque style at the site.
The building was finished in 1694, and two years later the monumental three-tiered Aron haKodesh or holy ark for the Torah scrolls was added, thanks to the generosity of Samuel Oppenheimer, then an affluent and influential person in the Hapsburg Empire. It is in the style of an early baroque altar.
The two-storey extensions at the north and west sides of the synagogue were built at the same time or a little later and are a little lower than the main building.
Many important rabbis are associated with the synagogue, including Elazar Fleckeles (1754-1826), a prolific author.
The synagogue was rebuilt in 1883-1884 by the architects Bedřich Münzberger and Antonín Baum, who were also involved in decorating the Spanish Synagogue in Prague. During this work, the western women’s gallery was elevated to the level of the main building.
The massive urban renewal of the ghetto at the turn of the 20th century left the Klausen Synagogue intact, while other baroque synagogues, including the Zigeuner, Great Court and New Synagogue, were demolished. Today, the Klausen Synagogue is the only surviving example of a baroque synagogue in the former ghetto.
During World War II, the Nazis used the Klausen Synagogue for storage. After the war, an exhibition on the theme of Jewish festivals and customs opened there.
The synagogue was rebuilt in 1960 and 1979-1981, and the Aron haKodesh was restored in 1983. A year later, a new exhibition of Hebrew manuscripts and early prints opened in the Klausen Synagogue.
The synagogue was restored again in 1995-1996 and the exhibition on Jewish festivals and customs reopened. Today the synagogue is administered by the Jewish Museum in Prague.
The exhibition introduces visitors to the foundational texts of Judaism, the Torah and the Talmud, sacred space in Judaism, the traditional components of the synagogue interior, the order of synagogue prayer services and texts and objects used in worship in synagogues. Other displays introduce Jewish Festivals and daily Jewish family life, as well as important milestones in Jewish life, including birth, circumcision, and marriage.
The theme of this exhibition continues in the neighbouring Ceremonial Hall which looks at the topic of the end of life.
The Jewish Ceremonial Hall was built in the neo-Romanesque style in 1906-1908, designed by the architect J Gerstl for the Jewish Burial Society, Hevrah Kaddishah.
The ceremonial hall is at the entrance to the Old Jewish Cemetery, founded in the early 15th century and one of the oldest and best-preserved Jewish cemeteries in Europe. There are about 12,000 tombstones in the cemetery, but the number of burials is far higher. Burials there ended in 1787.
The Aron haKodesh or Holy Ark in the Klausen Synagogue in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
John 10: 20-36 (NRSVA):
20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.
27 ‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say – “Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ 30 Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. 34 The crowd answered him, ‘We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains for ever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?’ 35 Jesus said to them, ‘The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.’
After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.
Gravestones in the Old Jewish Cemetery date back to the 15th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Today’s Prayer:
The theme this week in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘The Work of Bollobhpur Mission Hospital.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by USPG’s Regional Manager for Asia and the Middle East, Davidson Solanki, who reflected on the work of Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Bangladesh, for International Midwives’ Day this week.
The USPG Prayer invites us to pray this morning (Wednesday 3 May 2023):
Let us pray for the protestant churches of the Church of Bangladesh. May they work together to support their ministries amongst poor and marginalised communities.
Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
who in your tender love towards the human race
sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh
and to suffer death upon the cross:
grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility,
and also be made partakers of his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion:
Lord Jesus Christ,
you humbled yourself in taking the form of a servant,
and in obedience died on the cross for our salvation:
give us the mind to follow you
and to proclaim you as Lord and King,
to the glory of God the Father.
The grave of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as Maharal, beside the Klausen Synagogue in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
The name ‘Klausen’ is a German term derived from the Latin ‘claustrum’, meaning a closed space (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
03 May 2023
The general who chose
the ‘Unknown Warrior’ and
links with an architectural
dynasty from Staffordshire
Brigadier General Louis John Wyatt (1874-1950), descended from the Wyatts of Weeford … he chose the ‘Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey
Patrick Comerford
I have spent some time in recent weeks working on a paper on the era of the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War in Co Limerick. During my research, I once again came across the story of Brigadier General Louis John Wyatt, who was commanding British troops in Limerick and who unveiled the War Memorial in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, at a service 101 years ago on 2 May 1922.
The Cathedral War Memorial in Limerick is dedicated to the ‘men from Thomond.’ General Wyatt was chosen to unveil the memorial not just because of his senior army role in Limerick, but because he had become a popular public figure in the aftermath of World War I because of his role in creating the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey in 1920.
This story about General Wyatt creates an interesting link between Limerick and Lichfield, for he was descended from the Wyatt family, an important architectural dynasty from Lichfield. The Wyatt family originated in Weeford, south of Lichfield and west of Tamworth. I spoke on the Wyatt family in Lichfield at the invitation of the Lichfield Civic Society five years ago (24 April 2018), and there is an open invitation to give a similar talk to the Tamworth and District Civic Society.
http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2018/04/the-wyatt-family-of-weeford-lichfield.html Brigadier General Louis John Wyatt (1874-1950) was a senior officer in the North Staffordshire Regiment for many years, and in recent years his story has been researched by Danielle Crozier, formerly of the Staffordshire Regiment Museum in Lichfield, and the Cannock historian Richard Pursehouse.
Saint Mary’s Church in Weeford … generations of the Wyatt family were baptised, married and buried here (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Louis Wyatt was born in Islington, London, on 14 September 1874, the youngest of five children of James Matthew George Wyatt (1835-1889), a civil engineer, and Eliza Pinta (Hearn). Louis Wyatt’s grandfather, James Wyatt II (1808-1893), an architect, was a son of the painter and sculptor Matthew Cotes Wyatt (1777-1862), and a grandson of the architect James Wyatt (1746-1813), who was born in Weeford and whose great works include the Radcliffe Observatory and many college buildings in Oxford.
Louis Wyatt’s parents lived in Kingston-on-Thames, and he was sent to Aldenham Grammar School in Elstree, Hertfordshire. From there he joined the army. He was a second lieutenant in the King’s Liverpool Regiment by the age of 20, and transferred to the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1895. He took part in the Dongola Expedition in the Upper Nile in 1896, fought in the Boer War in 1899-1902, and was injured at Jackfontein in 1900.
He married Marion Jessie Sloane in All Saints’ Church, Daresbury, Cheshire, in 1904. She was known in her family as ‘Gypsy’, and was a daughter of William Sloane, who owned the Mersey White Lead Company in Warrington.
Wyatt was an officer in the North Staffordshire Regiment throughout World War I. He was awarded the DSO (Distinguished Service Order) in the king’s birthday honours in 1916. At the time, he was the commanding officer of the 4th York and Lancaster Regiment. The President of Portugal also decorated him as a Grand Officer the Military Order of Aviz after a battle in April 1918 in which many Portuguese soldiers suffered badly. By the end of World War I, he was a brigadier general, commanding forces in France and Flanders.
There were over 850,000 British military deaths in World War I. Many were buried in unidentified war graves, their headstones inscribed simply: ‘A soldier of the Great War known unto God.’ An Anglican army chaplain, the Revd David Railton, came up with the idea of burying an unknown soldier. King George V disliked the idea, but the prime minister, Lloyd George, intervened and arrangements were put in place for the ceremony.
The grave of the ‘Unknown Warrior’ in Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Wikipedia/CCL)
As General Office Commanding the British forces in France and Flanders, Wyatt was entrusted with the task of choosing the body of the ‘Unknown Warrior’ to be buried in Westminster Abbey.
Four or six bodies were exhumed from each of the battle areas – the Aisne, the Somme, Arras and Ypres – and taken to a makeshift chapel in St Pol, covered and concealed. There Wyatt chose one of them to represent all the soldiers, pilots and sailors who died in that war, and all wars.
The body was guarded and honoured and taken to Boulogne, where it was put into a coffin made of oak from Hampton Court. The coffin arrived in Dover on the morning of Armistice Day, 11 November 1920. The quayside was lined with people as it was taken by train to London, before being placed on a gun carriage drawn by black horses. The coffin passed through hushed crowds of thousands of people, some weeping. At the Cenotaph, George V placed a wreath on the coffin. It was brought to Westminster Abbey on the 11th hour of the 11th month, for a short funeral service and the soldier’s body was entombed inside the west entrance.
In the following days, more than a million people came to Westminster Abbey to pay their respects.
After leaving the army, Louis Wyatt took up various directorships and moved to Kirby Lonsdale with his family. In 1939, he was chair of John Hare (colours), Bristol, Director of the Mersey White Lead Company, Warrington and Director of the Moore Management Trust Ltd. In 1945. During World War II, he was also an honorary colonel of the North Staffordshire Regiment.
He became Sheriff of Westmorland in 1945. He died in Kirby Lonsdale on 28 April 1955, aged 80. Louis and Marion Wyatt were the parents of two daughters, Patricia (Boumphrey) and Laetitia (Hardie).
Wyatt rarely spoke about the Unknown Warrior, apart from one occasion in 1939 when he wrote an open letter to several newspapers, setting the record straight about how the process was undertaken. His daughter Laetitia Hardie thinks she understands why. ‘My view is that he regarded it as a sacred trust that had been committed to him, and that some things are just too sacred to ever be discussed.’
Laetitia Hardie, who was born on 21 August 1918, just a few months before the armistice on 11 November 1918, gave an interview with the Guardian at the age of 100. She recalled her childhood near the North Staffordshire barracks, growing up with her sister Patricia, their mother Marion, and her ‘quiet and high principled’ military father.
During World War, II Laetitia Hardie was a voluntary aid detachment nurse with the Red Cross and became an expert in anti-gas treatment. ‘Though my father rarely talked about the war,’ she recalled, ‘I do remember him abhorring the use of gas because of the horrific injuries it caused, and this inspired me to do anti-gas training.’
Her husband, Dr Patrick John Hardie, was an army doctor during World War II, and treated some of the emancipated prisoners when the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated.
Laetitia Hardie contacted the Staffordshire Regiment Museum in Lichfield in 2018, asking for photographs of her father’s medals. The curator Danielle Crozier began looking into Wyatt’s story and realised he had left behind an extraordinary legacy by choosing the Unknown Warrior.
Danielle Crozier believes that the symbolic significance of the Unknown Warrior cannot be overstated. ‘It was an inspirational idea – the idea of bringing back someone who could have been anybody – to allow those families, the daughters, sisters, the wives, to think, ‘you never know, he could be mine’. I think the Unknown Warrior gave so much hope to people. It allowed them to grieve.’
The War Memorial in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick … unveiled by General Wyatt 101 years ago on 2 May 1922 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
I have spent some time in recent weeks working on a paper on the era of the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War in Co Limerick. During my research, I once again came across the story of Brigadier General Louis John Wyatt, who was commanding British troops in Limerick and who unveiled the War Memorial in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, at a service 101 years ago on 2 May 1922.
The Cathedral War Memorial in Limerick is dedicated to the ‘men from Thomond.’ General Wyatt was chosen to unveil the memorial not just because of his senior army role in Limerick, but because he had become a popular public figure in the aftermath of World War I because of his role in creating the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey in 1920.
This story about General Wyatt creates an interesting link between Limerick and Lichfield, for he was descended from the Wyatt family, an important architectural dynasty from Lichfield. The Wyatt family originated in Weeford, south of Lichfield and west of Tamworth. I spoke on the Wyatt family in Lichfield at the invitation of the Lichfield Civic Society five years ago (24 April 2018), and there is an open invitation to give a similar talk to the Tamworth and District Civic Society.
http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2018/04/the-wyatt-family-of-weeford-lichfield.html Brigadier General Louis John Wyatt (1874-1950) was a senior officer in the North Staffordshire Regiment for many years, and in recent years his story has been researched by Danielle Crozier, formerly of the Staffordshire Regiment Museum in Lichfield, and the Cannock historian Richard Pursehouse.
Saint Mary’s Church in Weeford … generations of the Wyatt family were baptised, married and buried here (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Louis Wyatt was born in Islington, London, on 14 September 1874, the youngest of five children of James Matthew George Wyatt (1835-1889), a civil engineer, and Eliza Pinta (Hearn). Louis Wyatt’s grandfather, James Wyatt II (1808-1893), an architect, was a son of the painter and sculptor Matthew Cotes Wyatt (1777-1862), and a grandson of the architect James Wyatt (1746-1813), who was born in Weeford and whose great works include the Radcliffe Observatory and many college buildings in Oxford.
Louis Wyatt’s parents lived in Kingston-on-Thames, and he was sent to Aldenham Grammar School in Elstree, Hertfordshire. From there he joined the army. He was a second lieutenant in the King’s Liverpool Regiment by the age of 20, and transferred to the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1895. He took part in the Dongola Expedition in the Upper Nile in 1896, fought in the Boer War in 1899-1902, and was injured at Jackfontein in 1900.
He married Marion Jessie Sloane in All Saints’ Church, Daresbury, Cheshire, in 1904. She was known in her family as ‘Gypsy’, and was a daughter of William Sloane, who owned the Mersey White Lead Company in Warrington.
Wyatt was an officer in the North Staffordshire Regiment throughout World War I. He was awarded the DSO (Distinguished Service Order) in the king’s birthday honours in 1916. At the time, he was the commanding officer of the 4th York and Lancaster Regiment. The President of Portugal also decorated him as a Grand Officer the Military Order of Aviz after a battle in April 1918 in which many Portuguese soldiers suffered badly. By the end of World War I, he was a brigadier general, commanding forces in France and Flanders.
There were over 850,000 British military deaths in World War I. Many were buried in unidentified war graves, their headstones inscribed simply: ‘A soldier of the Great War known unto God.’ An Anglican army chaplain, the Revd David Railton, came up with the idea of burying an unknown soldier. King George V disliked the idea, but the prime minister, Lloyd George, intervened and arrangements were put in place for the ceremony.
The grave of the ‘Unknown Warrior’ in Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Wikipedia/CCL)
As General Office Commanding the British forces in France and Flanders, Wyatt was entrusted with the task of choosing the body of the ‘Unknown Warrior’ to be buried in Westminster Abbey.
Four or six bodies were exhumed from each of the battle areas – the Aisne, the Somme, Arras and Ypres – and taken to a makeshift chapel in St Pol, covered and concealed. There Wyatt chose one of them to represent all the soldiers, pilots and sailors who died in that war, and all wars.
The body was guarded and honoured and taken to Boulogne, where it was put into a coffin made of oak from Hampton Court. The coffin arrived in Dover on the morning of Armistice Day, 11 November 1920. The quayside was lined with people as it was taken by train to London, before being placed on a gun carriage drawn by black horses. The coffin passed through hushed crowds of thousands of people, some weeping. At the Cenotaph, George V placed a wreath on the coffin. It was brought to Westminster Abbey on the 11th hour of the 11th month, for a short funeral service and the soldier’s body was entombed inside the west entrance.
In the following days, more than a million people came to Westminster Abbey to pay their respects.
After leaving the army, Louis Wyatt took up various directorships and moved to Kirby Lonsdale with his family. In 1939, he was chair of John Hare (colours), Bristol, Director of the Mersey White Lead Company, Warrington and Director of the Moore Management Trust Ltd. In 1945. During World War II, he was also an honorary colonel of the North Staffordshire Regiment.
He became Sheriff of Westmorland in 1945. He died in Kirby Lonsdale on 28 April 1955, aged 80. Louis and Marion Wyatt were the parents of two daughters, Patricia (Boumphrey) and Laetitia (Hardie).
Wyatt rarely spoke about the Unknown Warrior, apart from one occasion in 1939 when he wrote an open letter to several newspapers, setting the record straight about how the process was undertaken. His daughter Laetitia Hardie thinks she understands why. ‘My view is that he regarded it as a sacred trust that had been committed to him, and that some things are just too sacred to ever be discussed.’
Laetitia Hardie, who was born on 21 August 1918, just a few months before the armistice on 11 November 1918, gave an interview with the Guardian at the age of 100. She recalled her childhood near the North Staffordshire barracks, growing up with her sister Patricia, their mother Marion, and her ‘quiet and high principled’ military father.
During World War, II Laetitia Hardie was a voluntary aid detachment nurse with the Red Cross and became an expert in anti-gas treatment. ‘Though my father rarely talked about the war,’ she recalled, ‘I do remember him abhorring the use of gas because of the horrific injuries it caused, and this inspired me to do anti-gas training.’
Her husband, Dr Patrick John Hardie, was an army doctor during World War II, and treated some of the emancipated prisoners when the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated.
Laetitia Hardie contacted the Staffordshire Regiment Museum in Lichfield in 2018, asking for photographs of her father’s medals. The curator Danielle Crozier began looking into Wyatt’s story and realised he had left behind an extraordinary legacy by choosing the Unknown Warrior.
Danielle Crozier believes that the symbolic significance of the Unknown Warrior cannot be overstated. ‘It was an inspirational idea – the idea of bringing back someone who could have been anybody – to allow those families, the daughters, sisters, the wives, to think, ‘you never know, he could be mine’. I think the Unknown Warrior gave so much hope to people. It allowed them to grieve.’
The War Memorial in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick … unveiled by General Wyatt 101 years ago on 2 May 1922 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
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