Zánik pražského ghetta aneb nezapomenutelný večer doktora Preiningera

The book The Disappearance of the Prague Ghetto is a novel by the writer Josef Vesely. It begins with an almost homely depiction of conditions in the former Jewish town, now Prague's fifth district, but gradually turns into a gripping narrative that offers great descriptions of the ghetto's demise and its sometimes strange characters. The Decline of the Prague Ghetto was first published in 1917, and the similarity to Gustav Meyrink's famous novel The Golem cannot be overlooked. Josef Veselý depicts houses and streets that no longer exist. His depiction alternates between images of passion, alcohol and prostitution. It all culminates in the brutal and ruthless dismantling of the old Jewish town, as seen through the eyes of its inhabitants. The second text, Bloody Stories from the Ghetto, or The Unforgettable Evening of Dr. Preininger, by contemporary author Dan Hrubý (among others, the Prague Stories series), introduces the reader to the conditions that prevailed in the ghetto and the debate that surrounded the liquidation. The author accompanies all this by describing the real crimes, often cruel and bloody, sometimes bizarre, that thrived in the local environment. He describes the stories of the killers and their victims, as well as the course of the trials. All the texts contain many detailed local descriptions, which, when juxtaposed with the rich pictorial material - including Helena H. Zahrádecká's illustrations, which draw on precisely located contemporary photographs - adds to their purely factual appeal. The book is accompanied by a detailed map on which the reader can accurately place individual events.