Shimon Abeles

In 1389, a great anti-Jewish pogrom called the Bloody Easter was unleashed on Easter, during which a large part of the Jewish population of Prague was killed. Several pogroms took place in the 15th and 16th centuries as well, and the expulsion of Jews from the country was a recurring event. According to the basic papal canon, however, all Jews were never to be slaughtered; a few were always to remain alive, as a symbol of "Jewish treason." A specific phenomenon were the compulsory catechism lectures for all ghetto inhabitants to convert them to the true faith.

One of the participants in these lectures was a boy from the Prague ghetto named Shimon Abeles. In 1694 he supposedly decided to become a Christian, but was killed by his own father for wanting so. In the Jesuit interpretation, he became a martyr for the faith. His corpse never succumbed to decomposition, and was found and displayed in the Old Town Square while the treacherous father and his helpers awaited death. Although he was not baptized, his grave can be found today to the left of the high altar in the Church of Our Lady before Tyn.