Old Jewish cemetery in Plzeň

The Old Jewish Cemetery in Plzeň is a modest, largely empty burial ground in the Lochotín district that quietly records nearly seven centuries of the city's Jewish community and its repeated destruction and revival. Only a handful of gravestones remain today, yet the site is still one of the most significant markers of Jewish heritage in Plzeň.

Where is it located?

The cemetery sits in the Lochotín district, east of Lidická Street, at the northern end of Bolevecká Street, roughly two kilometers north of Plzeň's main square. The surrounding area is quiet and largely residential, easily reached on foot from the city center or by public transport.

Why is it called the "old" cemetery?

The name distinguishes this site from a newer Jewish cemetery opened in another part of the city in 1898. The story of Jewish burial grounds in Plzeň, however, goes back much further. The earliest mention of a Jewish cemetery in the city dates to 1424, when the municipal council approved the sale of land to the Jewish community; the purchase was finalized in 1432, and the plot was enlarged in 1437 with additional land on the western edge of the Skvrňany suburb. That original cemetery vanished without a trace: after the Jews were expelled from Plzeň in 1504, they were barred from returning to the city for more than two centuries.

How did the current cemetery come about?

Only in the mid-19th century, once the Jewish community was able to resettle in Plzeň, did the need for a new burial ground arise. On February 5, 1856, the municipal council granted permission to establish a cemetery on then-undeveloped land in Bolevec, well away from the city center. The project was initiated by Michael Lederer. Over the following four decades several hundred people were buried here, among them Rabbi Angelus Kafka and Rabbi Salomon Graf. The last burial took place in 1898, when a new Jewish cemetery opened elsewhere in Plzeň and this site fell out of use.

What happened to it during the 20th century?

The cemetery's fate after 1930 was grim. In the following decades it suffered repeated neglect and deliberate destruction, first through postwar disrepair and later at the hands of the communist authorities and vandals. In 1986, the perimeter wall, the ceremonial hall, and the adjoining caretaker's flat were torn down. Most of the several hundred original gravestones were broken apart and dumped in a nearby ravine. Only nine original tombstones have survived to the present day.

What can visitors see today?

The surviving tombstones have been gathered on the site of the former ceremonial hall, next to a granite memorial slab inscribed with the site's history. In 2011 the grounds were revitalized: a wooden fence with an entrance gate was installed, and a black granite monument to the Fürth family was unveiled, marking the hundredth anniversary of the death of Heinrich Fürth, a member of a prominent local manufacturing family. The cemetery does not offer the long rows of headstones found at other Jewish burial sites in the region, but its sparse, quiet character makes a strong impression precisely because of the contrast between what once stood here and what remains.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly is the Old Jewish Cemetery in Plzeň? In the Lochotín district, at the northern end of Bolevecká Street, about two kilometers north of the city's main square.

Why is it called the "old" cemetery? Because a new Jewish cemetery opened elsewhere in Plzeň in 1898, making this cemetery in Bolevec, founded in 1856, the "old" one by comparison.

How many gravestones have survived? Only nine original tombstones remain, even though the cemetery originally held several hundred graves.

What does the monument on the site commemorate? A black granite monument, unveiled in 2011, honors the Fürth family on the hundredth anniversary of Heinrich Fürth's death.