At the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century the first Jews came to Golčův Jeníkov. This may have been even earlier, but the first written mention of them dates back to 1654. Because of the fear of the plague, they also moved out of the city for a time and then had to buy their place back for a high price.

In the first half of the 19th century over 600 Jews lived in Golčův Jeníkov, which was about a quarter of the population. At that time, Jews enjoyed freedom thanks, among other things, to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy. But then their numbers declined and after 1900 the local school closed due to an insufficient number of children.

Before World War II, about four percent of the country’s Jews lived in the town, including refugees from Halič. They were then transported to Poland in 1942. Of the 1,000 Jews, only five survived. After the war the Jewish community never recovered. A commemorative act to remember the wartime suffering of local Jews was held at the local Jewish cemetery in May 1992, on the fiftieth anniversary of the deportation.

The Jewish quarter of Golčův Jeníkov was never closed. In the centre of the ghetto there was a synagogue from the middle of the 17th century. Because it was wooden, it could not withstand the fire which ravaged it two hundred years later, so a brick version was built. Across the street was the school, where the ritual mikveh bath was also practised. One of the buildings also housed Rabbi Aron Kornfeld's yeshiva, a centre of Talmudic scholarship and Jewish higher education.

Photo: archive of Vysočina Tourism