Jewish cemetery, České Budějovice

The Jewish Cemetery in České Budějovice is one of the few places in the city that still tells the centuries-long, and often brutally interrupted, story of its Jewish community. Located in a spot known as Na Křížku, the burial ground covers just under seven thousand square metres, and its rows of gravestones, some destroyed, some restored, remain the most tangible record of Jewish life in this part of southern Bohemia.

How far back does Jewish presence in the city go?

The first Jewish residents settled in České Budějovice as early as the 14th century, when King John of Luxembourg granted permission for two families to move in, in 1341. His son, Charles IV, later allowed more families to join them. Jews lived alongside Christians on what was then called Židovská (Jewish) Street, today's U Černé věže. That early chapter ended violently: after a fire destroyed most of the houses on the street in the 1480s, the local Jewish community was blamed, leading to a trial in December 1505. Seven Jews were burned at the stake and thirteen were drowned; a year later, under a decree issued by King Vladislaus II, the survivors were expelled from the city altogether. For nearly three centuries afterward, Jewish settlement in the city was forbidden.

When was the current cemetery established?

Jews were only allowed to return to České Budějovice in 1849, once the old settlement restrictions were lifted. A new Jewish congregation was formed in 1856, and a decade later, in 1866, the cemetery at Na Křížku was founded, with the first burial recorded in 1867. By 1980, more than 1,300 people had been laid to rest there, making it the main burial site of the city's Jewish community from the mid-19th century onward.

What happened to the cemetery during the Nazi occupation?

World War Two left the deepest scars on the site. During the German occupation, local stonemasons were permitted to remove and reuse gravestones, so that only part of the more than 1,300 original tombstones survive today. The human toll was even greater: on 18 April 1942, more than 900 Jewish residents of the city and surrounding area were deported to death camps, and only a small number of them returned after the war.

What can visitors see at the cemetery today?

A sandstone monument to the victims of Nazism stands in the southern part of the cemetery, erected in 1950 as the first formal memorial to that tragedy. For decades afterward the grounds were left overgrown, until the early 1990s brought a clearing of dense vegetation and the restoration of the historic ceremonial hall. Further repairs followed in 2004, when part of the surrounding wall was fixed. Since 1998, the former ceremonial hall has housed a permanent exhibition on the history of the city's Jewish community, giving the site an educational role alongside its function as a place of memory and burial.

Frequently asked questions

Can the cemetery be visited? Yes, the grounds are open as a historic site and memorial, and the ceremonial hall building houses an exhibition on the local Jewish community's history.

How many original gravestones remain? Only part of the more than 1,300 original tombstones survive; many were destroyed or removed during the German occupation between 1939 and 1945.

Is this the only trace of the Jewish community left in the city? The cemetery is today the most substantial physical record of Jewish presence in České Budějovice, alongside the former synagogue building and historical references to the old Jewish street in the city centre.

Why was the cemetery only founded in the 19th century if Jews had lived here earlier? Following the expulsion in 1506, Jewish settlement in the city was banned for nearly three centuries. Only after Jews returned in 1849 and formed a new congregation in 1856 could a permanent burial ground be established.