The great rabbi saw the massacre, ran back to the shul, and led the golem down the stairs and across the empty sanctuary in the flickering torchlight that came through the window. The rampaging Gentiles had reached the synagogue. They were piling wood around the foundation to set it on fire when the rabbi opened the front doors and led the creature out. The rabbi released his hold on it and said to it, “Save us.” The golem stood without moving for a moment, its head raised. A hush came over the crowd in front of the synagogue as they saw the being that was shaped like a man, but too big to be one. The torches burned and everything was quiet while the golem and the Gentiles confronted each other. Then the golem took a step toward them. The ground shook when his foot came down and a terrified murmur started in the crowd. The golem took another step, then another. The murmur in the crowd turned to screams and they broke and ran, trampling the people in the back who didn’t move fast enough. In full panic the mob raced back through the narrow ghetto streets. Most made it over the wall, but the monster caught a few on the ghetto side and killed them by smashing in their heads or breaking their necks. The people on the other side of the wall listened to the shrieks of their companions and trembled, but they stood where they were, thinking they were safe. The golem reached the wall, stopped, and stared out over the top of the crowd. The Gentiles felt secure enough with the wall between them to raise their torches, shake their swords, and yell at the creature. It didn’t move; its huge head was a black mass against the gray night sky. The people got bolder, and a wave of them moved closer to the wall; but as soon as they did that, the golem raised its enormous fists, locked them, and brought them down on the top of the wall. With one blow it demolished the stone barricade that had enclosed the Jews of Prague, and, with defiant fury, it charged the city itself.

It pounded through boulevards and side streets, killing as it went. It broke down the walls of houses to get to the people cowering inside. It broke lamps and upended stoves and soon the city was burning.