New Jewish Cemetery (Prague)

Entrance gate to the New Jewish Cemetery Prague

The New Jewish Cemetery ( Czech Nový židovský hřbitov na Olšanech ) in Olšany in the Prague district of Žižkov is one of the two most famous Jewish cemeteries in the city and the largest Jewish cemetery in the Czech Republic .

history

Family grave of Franz Kafka and his parents. The names of the three younger sisters " Elli ", " Valli " and " Ottla ", who were murdered between 1942 and 1943 in the Chelmno and Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camps, are noted on a separate plaque .

Until 1787 the cemetery in the Josefov district served as the main burial place of Prague Jews. When emperor Joseph II banned burials in the city center in Prague , the Jewish community began to bury their dead in the cemetery in the Žižkov district in 1787 . When a communal necropolis for Prague was created in the local area of Olšany at the end of the 19th century , the Jewish community purchased a piece of land right next to it and set up their new cemetery there.

The new Jewish cemetery in Olšany was officially opened on July 6, 1890. With an area of over 100,000 m², it is about ten times the size of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov and offers space for around 100,000 graves, of which around 25,000 are currently occupied.

meaning

The cemetery contains numerous Art Nouveau monuments by Czech artists, including Jan Kotěra , Jan Štursa and Josef Václav Myslbek , the creator of the statue of St. Wenceslas on Prague's Wenceslas Square .

The grave inscriptions from the time before the German occupation in 1938, which are mostly in German and Hebrew, give an insight into the Jewish self-image.

Graves of famous people

literature

Arno Pařík, Vlastimila Hamáčková; Dana Cabanová, Petr Kliment (photos): Prague Jewish cemeteries . = Pražské židovské hřbitovy . = Prague Jewish cemeteries (translated by Stephen Hattersly and Peter Zieschang), Jewish Museum, Prague 2003, ISBN 80-85608-69-3 ( Czech / German / English ).