Obj. ID: 58392  Jewish Cemetery in Terezin, Czech Republic

The Jewish cemetery was established together with the ghetto in November 1941. Those who died in the ghetto were buried in this cemetery. "After the construction of the crematorium in September 1942, it was used to store the ashes of the deceased. In November 1944, the Nazi leadership decreed that the ashes of approximately 22,000 Jews from the cemetery be poured into the nearby Ohře River. After the crematorium’s operations were suspended in March 1945, burials were briefly reinstated. Today the remains of some 9,000 victims of the Shoah are buried here in individual and mass graves." [Holý, 2026, pp. 41-42] 

Terezín was designated as a memorial site in 1947, but it initially comprised only the Small Fortress and the National Cemetery. The Jewish cemetery was not a part of the memorial.

After the war, "the Jewish cemetery was administered by the Council of Jewish Religious Communities and maintained by its own resources and the goodwill of volunteers. In 1949, small tombstones began to be erected. It was not until 1955 that Jewish
organizations were permitted to erect a monument with inscriptions in both Czech and Hebrew in memory of the ‘tens of thousands of victims of the Nazi reign of terror’." [Holý, 2026, p. 48] "From 1956 onwards, the annual Kever Avot, a memorial service for the dead, was held at the Jewish Cemetery." [Holý, 2026, p. 49]

In 1962, the Terezín grounds were declared a national cultural memorial. In the mid-1960s, the Terezín Memorial was established as a research and documentation centre. [Holý, 2026, p. 51] It was decided to grant the memorial "a dignified and integrated appearance" as well as to include the Jewish cemetery, the premises of the ceremonial halls and mortuary, the columbarium, the place of remembrance by the River Ohře, and the crematorium in Litoměřice in the memorial. [Hauser, 2026, p. 59] The competition for the Design of Commemorative Sites was announced in 1968. In accordance with the competition results, the Jewish Cemetery was redesigned between 1969 and 1972; a memorial in the form of a menorah was installed in the cemetery as part of the project. "Symbolic tombstones featuring the Star of David were erected and the space of the cemetery closed off and surrounded by trees and stone walls. [...] This work was ... largely subsidized by donations organized by international Jewish organizations." [Holý, 2026, p. 52]  

"In addition to the Jewish Cemetery in the Bohušovice Basin and the commemorative site by the River Ohře in Terezín, were to
include modifications to the National Cemetery, the creation of a memorial to victims of the ghetto, and the site of the Underground Factory Richard (U-Verlagerung Richard) in Litoměřice. Most of the proposed changes, however, remained only on paper or in unpreserved models." [Hauser, 2026, p. 62]

The menorah became one of the visual icons of the Terezín Memorial .