AUGUST 19-20, 2024: In 1209, the medieval city of Carcassonne in southern France, was conquered by the Crusaders. After capturing the city, the Crusaders expelled its inhabitants, including the Jewish community. Some of the Jews from Carcassonne and other towns in southern France took refuge in Catalonia and rebuilt a community in the small town of Olot.
Not much is known about Olot’s Jewish community. In 1427, Olot was destroyed in an earthquake. Consequently, there are no traces of the Jewish presence in this city, except for a stone that was found in the chapel of the cemetery of Olot. The chapel was burned during the Spanish Civil War (late 1930s) and the stone, engraved in Hebrew, was found in the ruins and is now in the museum of Sant Estève.
Sant Estève is the largest church in Olot and is located in the heart of the city at the entrance to the old quarter. The text on the stone is about the dedication of a new synagogue. Based on the text, it is thought that the synagogue was perhaps partially financed by a wealthy Jew who came to Olot from southern France.
Today, on the way to our family reunion, we drove through Olot, hoping to see this stone. Olot, with about 35,000 inhabitants, is a large town only 20 minutes west of Besalu. Nowadays, like in many other Spanish towns, many Muslim immigrants have settled in Olot, and they have become a significant part of the population. We felt this strongly.
The museum in the church closes at 11:15 on Monday mornings, and we arrived just a few minutes before. Mark ran ahead hoping he would still be able to get in. When he reached the museum, and showed them a photo of the stone, they said you need to make an appointment at the tourist bureau to see it. He then went to the tourist bureau, and they said that you need to convince the people at the church to let you see it. In other words, this would not be simple. We still had a family reunion to shop and prepare for, so we left Olot disappointed and without seeing the stone.
On Tuesday, during the family reunion, our kids went hiking and we stayed behind. This gave us a few hours free to travel to Vic, a town south of where we were staying, about ½ way between us and Barcelona.
Although Vic is a large town (population today about 45,00), many times larger than Besalú and Castelló d’Empúries, it never had a large Jewish community. At its height, in the 13th century, only about 40 Jews lived here. The Jewish neighborhood was inside the walled city, near the palace. The community had a synagogue and a school. During the pogroms of 1391, the majority of the Jews of Vic were massacred. The six left alive owed their survival to conversion to Christianity. All Jewish property in the town was seized by the crown.
We arrived in Vic in the early afternoon, and being siesta hour, almost everything was closed. The streets were mostly empty. The sun was shining brightly, and the temperature was hot. Siesta was beginning to make sense to me – this was not great weather to be walking around in.
Our first glimpse of the historic district was a bit unsettling. Here, like in Olot, a significant part of the population is Muslim. As we walked towards the old part of town, the beautiful view of entrance bridge to the town was marred by Free Palestine from Occupiers and Genocide graffiti.
We crossed the bridge into the historic area and made our way through the deserted streets to the Jewish area.
All we knew was that the Jewish quarter, the Call, was located near Guiu street. After much wandering (and a frozen yogurt to relieve the burning sun), we found the very narrow Carrer d’en Guiu.
It led to a small plaza, and on the doorway of one of the buildings we found a wooden plaque. It was written in Catalan and did not Google translate well, but we understood that the plaque outlines the history of the house. It begins in 1277, with the purchase of the land to build houses and a synagogue here. These were all destroyed in the pogroms of 1391.
On the other side of the plaza, was a marker on the ground, identifying the area as the Jewish Quarter – Call Jueu.
As we walked through the town, we saw yellow ribbons in many places. These are the same yellow ribbons now all over Israel signifying the wish for the return of the hostages. At first I thought this was perhaps a sign of support, but no, here they mean something very different. Turns out that yellow ribbons are an international symbol for freedom. Here in Catalonia, the yellow ribbon signifies independence, to be free from Spain. This was an idea that was very popular several years ago, but seems to recently be losing its popularity.
All in all, we found in Vic more than we had expected – both from a Jewish and an anti-Jewish view.
Looks like we missed a beautiful town!