Jewsh cemetery

A Jewish cemetery was established in the first third of the 17^th century by the local Jewish community and was situated in front of the north-west end of the town fortification outside the fortification wall. It was reconstructed and extended in the next centuries (reconstructed in 1697 and extended to the today’s expanse of 1368 m² in 1834).

About 250 tombstones (steles) valued for their artistic and historical features with inscriptions in Hebrew, German and Czech language, sometimes with traditional Judaist symbols are kept in that cemetery. Part of the steles lost their original inscriptions (the oldest readable one is from 1687) due to the influence of the meteorological conditions or they were made of stone of a poorer quality. Along with the artistic and crafts demanding steles (mostly from the Renaissance and Baroque times) there can be found many simply chiselled stones with inscriptions. The area has kept the individual parts of the town fortification due to the constancy it was kept in the last four centuries so the moat, the zwinger and the town rampart with two five-sided towers can be seen there.

The present condition of the cemetery shows its character from the 40s of the 20^th century when the Jewish community was deported to Terezín by the Nazis and then to the extermination camps in Poland.