Jewish cemetery in Přehořov

The Jewish cemetery in Přehořov is a small, forested burial ground in South Bohemia that quietly preserves the memory of a Jewish community far larger than the present-day village would suggest. It sits at the edge of a wood roughly 1.5 km southeast of the village center, along the road toward Lžín, with no sign or marker at the roadside — yet the place itself still leaves a strong impression on anyone who finds it.

When was the cemetery founded?

The burial ground most likely dates back to before 1723, making it one of the older Jewish cemeteries in the region. It originally served the local Jewish community of Přehořov, which reached its peak in 1849 with more than a hundred members. Over the following decades, however, Jewish life gradually shifted to nearby Soběslav, only about 3 km away, where the seat of the religious congregation itself moved during the second half of the 19th century. Despite that shift, the cemetery kept serving as a shared burial site for Jews from both settlements well into the period before the Second World War.

How many graves have survived?

The site covers a modest area of under 0.09 hectares, yet it holds a surprising number of physical traces of the past. Estimates put the surviving tombstones and their remnants — bases, broken torsos, fragments — somewhere between a few dozen and over a hundred, scattered among the trees, with many still standing in their original spots. The matzevot are carved from granite, limestone and sandstone, and their inscriptions appear in Hebrew, German and Czech, reflecting the multilingual character of the local Jewish community from a century and a half ago.

What happened to the cemetery over the years?

Regular burials had largely ended well before the war — the main period of use fell between 1830 and 1850, though later burials also occurred. By 1930, only six people of Jewish faith remained in Přehořov itself, alongside 78 in Soběslav, and by 1941 the racial laws applied to just 16 people in Přehořov — a stark measure of how much the community had already shrunk before the Holocaust. In the decades that followed, the site fell into neglect: the surrounding stone wall partly crumbled, and the tombstones suffered from weather, overgrowth and vandalism.

What does it look like today?

The cemetery is now listed as a protected cultural heritage site of the Czech Republic. The Jewish Community of Prague has carried out restoration work that halted the tombstones' ongoing deterioration and secured the site for future generations. It remains freely accessible, reached directly from the public road through a partly damaged boundary wall and an unlocked gate — no tickets, no guides, no restrictions.

Frequently asked questions

Is the cemetery open to the public? Yes, visitors can walk in freely through the damaged boundary wall; there is no entrance fee or guided tour.

Have original tombstones survived on site? Yes, somewhere between several dozen and over a hundred matzevot and fragments remain, some still in their original positions, with inscriptions in Hebrew, German and Czech.

Until when was the cemetery in use? Its main period of burials ran from roughly 1830 to 1850, though it continued to serve the Jewish communities of Přehořov and Soběslav for a long time afterward, up to the period before the Second World War.

Is it worth visiting if I'm near Soběslav? Absolutely — it's an authentic, quiet memorial site just a few kilometers from Soběslav, and a meaningful stop for anyone interested in the Jewish history of South Bohemia.