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This project seeks to collect all of the Jewish families from Cheb (Eger) in Bohemia, Czech Republic.
Village district (bezirk) and region: Cheb (German: Eger), is a city in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic
Location: Located in Bohemia at 50º04' 12º03', 38 km WSW of Karlovy Vary. It is situated on the river Ohře, at the foot of one of the spurs of the Smrčiny and near the border with Germany.
History:
The History of the Jews in Cheb (Eger) a town in West Bohemia, Czech Republic. The community there, one of the oldest in Bohemia, dated from the 13th century. The privileges granted to Cheb Jewry by the rulers were successively endorsed by the kings of Bohemia, from Ottokar II in 1266 to Charles IV in 1347.
. . . During the intervals in which the community was able to flourish peaceably, a number of well-known Jewish scholars were active in Cheb. Rabbi Nathan (second half of the 14th century, first half of the 15th century) acquired international fame here. He died and was buried in Jerusalem.
From the end of the 17th to the middle of the 18th centuries a few Jewish families lived there. They left for unknown reasons. A new congregation was established in 1862 and grew rapidly. By the beginning of the 20th century the name of Eger had become a byword for rabid antisemitism in the Hapsburg empire. There were 515 Jews living in Cheb in 1921, and 491 in 1930 (1.5% of the total population), of whom 75 declared their nationality as Jewish.
During the Sudeten crisis of 1938 the Jewish community left Cheb. On September 23 the city's two synagogues were burned down. In January 1945 a transport of prisoners from Auschwitz stopped at the local railroad station and 139 dead bodies were removed. They were cremated at the local crematorium. In the cemetery a monument in memory of Nazi victims was dedicated in 1950. At nearby Pořiči another 180 bodies were removed from the same train, the victims having died en route or been shot. They were subsequently cremated or buried at the local cemetery.
A congregation of about 200 was organized in 1945, but dispersed in 1947. In 1962 ten Jewish families were living in Cheb. In 1969 a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust was unveiled on the site of the Jewish cemetery destroyed by the Nazis.
Notables
Noted Jews born in Cheb include-:
- Norbert Frýd (1913–1976), who wrote about the Holocaust in his native country;
- Hugo Zuckermann (1881–1914), the German-Jewish poet
- Paul Loewy-Levi (1891–1970), a pioneer of the puppet theater and stage designer.
Genealogical Resources
Birth, Death and Marriage record books for ….. are preserved and located at ……
Jewish Cemetry:
- Jewish Cemetery IAJGS
The Jewish cemetery originated in 1872 as the third recorded cemetery of local Jewish community. Five tombstones of the medieval cemetery are kept in local museum. Buried in the unlandmarked cemetery were rabbis and poet H. Zuckermann (see above) with last known Conservative or Progressive/Reform Jewish burial was before 1943 (probably before 1939) then after 1945.
Eger Families
Eger Inhabitants