The New Jewish Cemetery at Olšany

When the old cemetery in Josefov ceased to meet the needs of Prague’s Jewish Community in terms of size it was decided in 1890 to build a new, larger cemetery that would suffice for at least 100 years. This gave rise to a burial site measuring over 10 hectares and projected to hold approximately 100,000 graves.

The cemetery is approximately 10 times bigger in area than the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov and its capacity is about a quarter filled, with around 25,000 dead having been buried there to date. Its ceremonial hall, house of purification and other administrative buildings are in the neo-Renaissance style, as is the outer wall. Interestingly, as it is divided into squares that were planned one by one, a stroll through the cemetery offers an overview of styles that succeeded one another, starting with the neo-Gothic and passing through neo-Renaissance, Prague and Viennese Art Nouveau, Classicism, Purism and Constructivism and continuing right up to the present. The cemetery is the final resting place of numerous important figures, including the rabbis Dr. Nathan Ehrenfedl and Dr. Gustav Sicher, the writer Ota Pavel, the poet Jiří Orten and, most notably, the legendary Prague Jewish writer Franz Kafka, author of great works of world literature whose legacy is still being drawn on by famous writers today. Also to be found there are memorials to Jewish soldiers who fell at Dunkirk and Tobruk and to those who died in the sinking of the Patria.