Slovak Jewish Heritage Database

Cemetery in Častá

Item

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Title

Cemetery in Častá

Description

The new Jewish cemetery is located about 500-600 meters south-east of the edge of the village, next to a farm. A rectangular flat compound with north-east to south-west orientation, it is today hidden by mature trees that have turned the area into a pleasant location. Sections of the original stone walls remain and traces of the cemetery chapel can be found on the north-eastern side. This was the original entrance to the compound: a long, narrow strip of land, which once provided road access, remains to this day in Jewish ownership.

Access to the cemetery is now from the south-east, where the local civic association that maintains the site has placed an entrance structure, bench and information panel. There are about 100 marked graves in the compound. Ninety are organized in seven rows in one part, and about ten more are dispersed in the north-eastern section.

The cemetery was established in the second half of the 19th century to replace the old cemetery near the castle. Older headstones are traditional vertical stellae (matzevot), some of them with semi-circular endings. Some older gravestones are textually rich, with poetic Hebrew texts commemorating the deceased, as was common in the past.

Later tombstones are of the obelisk type, with Hebrew text on one side and vernacular (mostly German, but with one in Slovak) on the reverse. Many headstones are only fragments, but the local civic association is gradually restoring the site and re-assembling the tombstones. The cemetery is the property of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Slovak Republic.

Date

second half of the 19th cent. / druhá pol. 19. stor.

Identifier

Lot. No. 1770

Format

3,777 square meters

Collection

Citation

“Cemetery in Častá,” Slovak Jewish Heritage Database, accessed April 20, 2024, https://database.slovak-jewish-heritage.org/items/show/8.

Geolocation