It stood in the ark at Raleigh's Temple Beth Or, the tallest and oldest of the congregation's seven Torahs, taken out and read during the High Holy Days and on other occasions.

Raachel Jurovics, the temple's assistant rabbi, knew its history -- or so she thought.

She told tour groups the Torah came from Hermanuv Mestec, a small town 60 miles east of Prague in what is now the Czech Republic. The Torah found its way to Raleigh, she said, after the town and its synagogue were destroyed during World War II.

Three years ago, on one of these tours, a young woman with an accent piped up.

No, she said, the synagogue wasn't destroyed. I come from there.

Tonight, the beginning of Passover, Jews around the world will gather at ritual Seder meals to remember -- remember that they were once slaves in Egypt, that as a people, they suffered and overcame injustice, that today they are free.

Those who worship at Temple Beth Or also know that while others tried to destroy them, not everyone was quite so willing to forget them.

Earlier this month, Torah No. 622 returned -- albeit briefly -- to the synagogue where it was first used. A group of 15 Jews from Temple Beth Or and a minister from West Raleigh Presbyterian Church carried it across the Atlantic in a suitcase meant for golf clubs. In the presence of four of the town's clergy members, the vice mayor and a dozen townspeople, the group held a weekday morning service, much as the Jews of the town did for 500 years.

Except that this was the first Jewish service in Hermanuv Mestec in 68 years. And in this town, there were no more Jews.

Centuries erased

The 16 people who returned from the Czech Republic last week will tell you that remembering is not enough. Sometimes it's as important to thank other people for remembering.

"They could have bulldozed the synagogue," said Jurovics. "It's in the middle of town and they needed a new elementary school."

Instead, the people of Hermanuv Mestec -- population 4,000 -- decided that was one thing they could not do.

As in many of the small towns surrounding Prague, Hermanuv Mestec had a sizeable Jewish population dating to the 15th century. By 1859, the Jewish population reached its zenith with 721 people. Jews owned several shoe factories and many retail stores. They had a cemetery and a school.

And of course, they had a synagogue. Last rebuilt in 1870, the Moorish-looking temple was oblong, with six stained-glass windows, an upstairs gallery for women, and an elaborate wooden ark. According to one account, it had three Torah scrolls, which Jews read from during services each week.

But as with most European Jewish communities, life came to an abrupt and brutal end.

The Munich Agreement of 1938 allowed Adolf Hitler to annex Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. Abandoned by its allies, the Czechoslovakian government capitulated.

By 1939, Jews were forced to wear a yellow star. The following year, they were dismissed from government service, denied school attendance and forbidden from worshipping in their synagogue.

Then, on Dec. 3, 1942, the last remaining Jews of Hermanuv Mestec -- about 60 --were ordered to assemble in the town square and put on trains bound for Theresienstadt, a transit camp. From there they traveled to Auschwitz, where 90,000 Czech Jews were systematically gassed.

Meanwhile, the town's three Torahs were shipped to Prague as part of an agreement the Jews struck with the Nazis to preserve the scrolls in one place. The synagogue was converted to a warehouse.

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