Pavel Haas

Mozart visited Brno, Korngold was born there. But one of the Czech city’s most heroic musical figures is Pavel Haas (pictured above), a highly original composer whose music defies categorisation. Embedded in the pavement outside hundreds of residences in Brno are brass plaques (‘stolpersteine’ or ‘stumbling blocks’) bearing the names of the mostly Jewish people who lived there before being transported to Nazi concentration camps. You can find Haas’s at Smetanova 630/28, detailing his birthdate, the year he was deported to Terezín, the Jewish ghetto 30 miles from Prague, and his death.