Introduction
The postcards shown here are part of the artistic project "The pictures are coming back", which is dedicated to the representation and visibility of the former and present synagogues of Ústí nad Labem, Děčín, Dresden, Görlitz, Teplice and Zittau.
The starting point was research on former Jewish cemeteries in the city of Ústí nad Labem in Czech Republic. I noticed that the former synagogue of Ústí nad Labem hardly ever appears as a pictorial motif on postcards and photographs. In addition, the synagogue was not designated on the cards. Therefore, I began to search specifically for postcards of the synagogue as a solitary image motif or in views of the city. At the same time, I collected material from the German cities of Dresden, Görlitz and Zittau the Czech cities of Teplice and Děčín from 2022 onwards. The focus of my interest was the question of the presence of the synagogue as a pictorial motif as well as how it was dealt with, was it shown, cropped or covered.
The present postcards, which were created between 1897 and 2017, are an excerpt from the collection. They are sorted according to cities, individual motifs and perspectives. They are further classified according to the postmark and the handwritten date on the cards. Cards without a postmark or dating were sorted according to existing dated postcards.