Jewish Cemetery

According to Jan Heřman, the Jewish cemetery was founded in 1897. According to Vít Korec from Trutnov, though, it was founded as early as 1811 (since he writes about it in his Journey Report during his Visit to the Cemetery).

The cemetery, covering about 1454 m2, is on a moderate slope about 2 km to the north of the town centre. The headstones face north; the rows of graves go from west to east. The first burials were in the upper southern part of the cemetery with new graves being added to the north. The most recent graves are next to the brick funeral hall (which has the shape of a 3x4m rectangle), which was probably also used as an entrance to the cemetery.

The last funeral at the Jewish cemetery took place around January, 1942 (the minutes of a meeting on 15 July, 1965, dealing with the cemetery closure also include a statement made by Marta Soukupová saying that the last person buried there was her father Salamon Bohm). However, without mentioning any sources, Vít Korec writes in his Journey Report that funerals were also held there in 1944. A letter written by the local authority on 16 March, 1971, includes the following statement: "According to the results of a recent fact-finding mission, the last burial at your cemetery took place in about 1939." Mrs. Eva Dušková, née Freyová, is inclined to believe the first date, but Mrs. Emílie Králová, née Nespěchalová, remembers that she was there in the summer of 1942 at Mr. Fried's funeral.

Since WWII, the cemetery has become more and more run down, since there has not been enough money for its upkeep. Štěpán Kosek, one of the locals, wanted to take bricks from the funeral hall. He applied for permission to demolish it (the request was submitted on 12 January 1969) claiming that 'the hall is falling into ruin and, for example, the ceiling practically does not exist. Despite the fact that the Prague Jewish Community gave permission to demolish the hall (on 10 March, 1970), this demolition never actually happened.

The local stonemason, František Pilný, supposedly took away an unknown amount of stones from the cemetery in the summer of 1969. Mrs. Markéta Freyová sued him for the theft of 24 gravestones, including one which belonged to her family. The District Court in Svitavy let him off as long as he returned the stones (a ruling made on 23 January, 1970). However, this was not the end of the story. In 1972, he was charged again for the theft of another 15 gravestones. He made kerbs, stairs etc. out of them. Other people had stolen gravestones before, but only Pilný was caught out.

Closuring the cemetery was considered several times. The local authority proposed this in its letter as of 8 October, 1963 to the Jewish Community in Prague. The Community agreed, but under certain conditions. They insisted that a memorial be built at the municipal cemetery or in the urn grove, carrying the following inscription: "To the Memory of All Those Who Were Buried at the Jewish Cemetery". The reason for this was so that the survivors would not have to pay for the closure of the monument or the exhumation of the bodies, etc. The local authority refused and threatened to ask the town hygienist to order the closure of the cemetery. The chairman of the local authority also offered to buy the well-preserved gravestones for further use in sculptures. Other proposals for the cemetery's closure were submitted by the local authority in 1971 and 1974. Finally, the cemetery remained at its original location, but it was never repaired and continued to fall into ruin. On 28 December, 1986, a monument was unveiled commemorating the Jews tortured to death between 1939-1945.

Most of the gravestones at the Jewish cemetery remain in disarray to this day and some of them are damaged. Bushes and trees have grown wildly all around. In the 1980s, water got in to the cemetery from the surrounding fields, soaking the graves as well as the gravestones. It even spilled over the cemetery stone wall (we know this from a letter written on 17 April, 1989, by Mrs. Wolfová to the district authority in Svitavy).

In 2002, building work started on the cemetery's funeral hall. This work is being done by the Real Estate Administration Office of the Jewish Community which hired the MATANA a.s. Praha company to carry out the work. The Litomyšl Town Council contributed financially to the rebuilding.

Petr Tměj

Prameny: Dana Christianová, David Zeman - Židovský hřbitov v Litomyšli (seminární práce 1993/1994, Škola restaurování a konzervačních technik Litomyšl), vzpomínky pamětníků