PRAGUE'S PEDESTRIANS

Tourists stand or walk across the pavement of the pedestrian zone at Wenceslas
Square in Prague on March 15, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / Michal CIZEK)

Prague pedestrians tread unaware on Jewish graves.

On a fine spring day in the Czech capital, a young husker draws a crowd with the rendition of  *Knockin on Heavens Door*.

Little does he realise the poignancy of the  Bob Dylan's lyrics.

Since the pedestrian zone where he's standing was built in 1985 in the heart of Prague, thousands of people unknowingly walk daily across a pavement made of tombstones taken from a derelict Jewish cemetery.

The sturdy, blue-grey hued slabs that the Wenceslan Square, distinct from the finer cubic stones typical elsewhere in Prague, are a legacy of the Communist past, but no less distressing for the Jewish community.

''Some things are always shocking, regardless of your faith,'' says Leo Pavlat, head of the Jewish Museum in Prague.

''Does this barbarian act offend only Jews, or is it a matter of culture, decency, shared citizenship?''

Pavlat told AFP that he had kept two of the paving stones, which he had taken off a pile at the time of the pavement's construction, as a ''sad reminder''.

''They had an inscription in Hebrew,'' he added.

Since the 1989 fall of Communism, Jewish representatives have taken up the issue of the paving stones - and the upset they cause - with authorities several times.

But to no avail, they said.

'Long, rich history'  : ''We talked about it with several interior ministers and many mayors of Prague.

''They were sympathetic but things came complicated lower down, when civil servants raised different obstacles of a technical and organizational nature,''  said Tomas Kraus, Secretary of the Czech Federation of Jewish Communities, which has about 3,000 members.

With great pomp, Czechoslavakia's totalitarian regime opened the pedestrian area in 1985.

Surrounded by dozens of revamped historic buildings, it soon became popular, connecting Wenceslas Square with the Royal Mile that takes million of Tourists annually from downtown to the Castle that overlooks Prague.

For decades the Jewish paving stones fate has upset some residents, without ever becoming the subject of a wider public debate. [Agencies]