Quote by Christopher Hitchens
The noble old synagogue had been profaned and turned into a stable by the Nazis, and left open to the elements by the Communists, at least after they had briefly employed it as a 'furniture facility.' It had then been vandalized and perhaps accidentally set aflame by incurious and callous local 'youths.' Only the well-crafted walls really stood, though a recent grant from the European Union had allowed a makeshift roof and some wooden scaffolding to hold up and enclose the shell until further notice. Adjacent were the remains of a bath for the ritual purification of women, and a kosher abattoir for the ritual slaughter of beasts: I had to feel that it was grotesque that these obscurantist relics were the only ones to have survived. In a corner of the yard lay a pile of smashed stones on which appeared inscriptions in Hebrew and sometimes Yiddish. These were all that remained of the gravestones. There wasn't a Jew left in the town, and there hadn't been one, said Mr. Kichler, since 1945.
Summary
This quote describes the degraded state of a once revered synagogue. The synagogue had been defiled and used for mundane purposes by various groups, including the Nazis and Communists. It had been left in ruins, only the walls still standing, until a recent grant allowed for minimal repairs. Nearby, other Jewish cultural relics such as a bath and abattoir lay dilapidated. The mention of the gravestones being smashed implies that the Jewish community hardly exists anymore, with the last Jew leaving the town in 1945. This quote captures the tragic loss of Jewish heritage, leaving behind only a broken and forgotten past.
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