The webmaster visited Prague in october 2003 :
My contact in Prague was Daniel Polakovic who works at the department of Jewish Studies
at the Jewish Museum in Prague. (Phone : +420 221 711 528, e-mail : daniel.polakovic@jewishmuseum.cz)
Dan wrote a thesis about Darke Zion by Moses Israel Naftali Porges (1650).
Unfortunately, this 100 pages document is written in Czech.
But thanks to Edita Attek, a member of the von Portheim family, the Porges excerpts were translated from Czech to English.
It contains some interesting information about the origin of the Porges family (hence von Portheim).
Dan kindly gave me a copy of his work, which I will be more than happy to forward to anyone interested. The computer file was lost.
It would be interesting to have this document read by a Czech-speaking person, and the relevant excerpts translated into English (may be Helen Atteck's daughter in law who lived in Slovakia????).

Dan also deciphered the Porges tombstones in the Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague. All in Hebrew. Most date way back before 1600. Dan promised that he (or someone under his supervision) would transcript the texts into roman characters and send them to me for posting on the website.

Dan made the necessary appointments for me to visit the Portheimka villa and took me to the Old and New Jewish cemeteries of Smichov, where some von Portheims are buried.

Dan was told by the community that funds are needed to repair and maintain
the Portheim's monument at the New Jewish cemetery of Smichov.
The person to contact is :
Ing. Mojmir Maly
Sprava Zidovskych Hrbitovu
Izraelska 1
PRAGUE 3, 130 00
Phone : +420 2 272 739 045

Dan, thank you so much for your time and your invaluable help.

 

The Portheimka villa is nicely located in Smichov, a borough of Prague where many office buildings are under construction. It is the location of Prague's Carrefour hypermarket & many new department stores.
It is becoming a trendy area for artists. The villa is located along a small park, that once was probably part of the property. There are two buildings.
One on the left that we could visit, and one on the right that is reserved for private events.

The villa is now under the responsibility of an official preservation public office :

NARODNI DUM NA SMICHOVE
namesti 14, rijna 16
150 00 PRAHA
phone +420 2 570 999 27


Mrs Jaroslava MALIKOVA has the keys to the villa and she very kindly gave us a complete tour.

The building is extremely well maintained. It is used occasionally for concerts, and the second floor was used as a studio by a local classical music FM radio.

The left aisle has three levels. There are two statues in the front. They are copies of the originals which are stored inside the building for preservation. On the left site of the entrance, there is a curious grotto decoration.

 

On the ground floor, there is a public cafe (Apostrof) and an area reserved for exhibitions (empty when I visited).

There are several rooms on the first floor.

A central concert room with marble on the walls and frescos painted on the ceiling.


 

 

 

 

 

(myself visiting ... )
Two adjacent rooms with frescos on the walls and a few paintings (none of which is a Portheim portrait).

I insisted on visiting the second floor which Mrs MALIKOVA said was totally empty, and it was.
No Portheim portrait there either.
At the end of the park, there is a new office building under construction and nearly completed. It is called the Portheimka Center. On the picture, the P. villa can be seen in the back on the right hand side of the alley.

Then we went to the New Jewish Cemetery of Smichov.

It is a very small cemetery.
The two Portheim graves are in the back, on the right hand side.

The monument on the left is the grave of Joseph and Rosa von Portheim. At the bottom of the plaque, there is a music score (Beethoven, opus 58 n. III).

This is the monument for which funds are needed for renovation and maintenance.

Family tree

Left of the above monument is the grave of Mathilde von Portheim geb. Philipp and Gustav von Portheim.

Family tree