The Jewish Cemetery – the strange atmosphere of a place of sleeping souls

Symbols on ancient Jewish tombstones in the shade of tall trees tell stories about the long since departed.

Although the Jewish cemetery was founded in 1630, the oldest preserved gravestone dates from 1684. The cemetery suffered the worst blows during the Nazi occupation, then again in 1989, when the Socialist regime planned to raze it to the ground. Demolition work, which hit 70 percent of the area, destroyed or damaged numerous tombstones. Thankfully, the demolition was halted and the graveyard was repaired and declared a cultural heritage site in the early 1990s after the revolution.

More than 650 gravestones were saved. They include the gravestone of Oskar Kafka, cousin of famous writer Franz Kafka, and the gravestone of Lotti Singerová, mother of encyclopaedia editor Isidore Singer. Other persons buried in the cemetery include Julius Freud, younger brother of the world-famous founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, whose child’s grave has not been preserved.

The key to the cemetery can be borrowed from the information centre at the château or from the Synagogue Gallery during opening hours.