Then on the Ckyne. A short ride through beautiful countryside and then into the town. One of the first buildings we passed is the Chateau where the townís owner (landlord) lived Claudi Carluli. It turns out that the large house immediately opposite this chateau where the caretaker lived was the home of Philipp and Anna in 1853, when Regina was married.
Here
are some first views of Ckyne
Julius showed me where the LEDERER department store was until the 1930s (according to Franciscoís report from which the FANTES were deported from) and the house where Anna FANTES LEDERER died in 1871. Then we went to see the synagogue from the outside.
Here
are some views of the Synagogue in Ckyne
It was about 1:30 and Julius had a 1:45 bus so I drove him back to Volyne. Again, an amazingly short trip. Then we had lunch at the only pace that was open in town this holiday. (OK food, no English spoken). Then we went to the Cemetery.
Here are some pictures of the outside of Ckyne cemetery
Here
are some views of the inside of the Ckyne cemetery
Ahab was already there. After seeing so much already this was almost too much. A very beautiful spot. Very well preserved. Achab's directory was easy to use. The rows are very clear. I found Fanziska LEWIT FANTES, Anna FATES LEDERER, and many others very quickly. Oh what difficulties I would have had without the help of Achab.
Here are some of the stones I saw:
Pictures of gravestones in the Ckyne Cemetery
In Ckyne we met Jindra Brimova who is the energy behind
efforts to restore the Ckyne
Synagogue. A very nice lady who teaches English
in high school. We should help her to accomplish this mission.
Here she is at the ark in the Ckyne Synagogue.
We stayed the night at Hotel Anna in Winterberg.
Winterberg is about 10 km south of Ckyne. The hotel is modern
but somewhat bland. Winterberg is built on high hills (topped by
a very old castle). It is a much bigger city than Ckyne, perhaps
the same size as Volyne.
Tuesday April 17.
Early in the morning I drove back to Volyne to take some pictures of the road from Volyne to Vimperk. It was a beautiful sunny morning. On the way back I stopped in Lcovice. It is a step back in time. It really looks like a town 150 yeas ago. Small houses, crammed together on some hills, no stores, completely agricultural. I took many photos there. I highly recommend it to you when you visit Ckyne.
Then we had breakfast and started the short drive to Ceske
Budejovice. It is about 50 km through beautiful country. On
the way we stopped in Vlacho Brezhi and tried to find the Jewish Cemetery.
I could not find it. This was a disappointment since I know that it is
open.
We arrived in CB at about noon. I walked to the central square which is quite famous, and went to the tourist office in the city hall.
The city hall:
The famous square:
The square again:
Number 3 Rathausgasse Where my grandfather Julius LEDERER
and all of his siblings were born:
At the city hall, I asked about the location of the Jewish cemeteryóthe attendantsí English was pretty bad and I had some trouble explaining what exactly I wanted. They pointed out many cemeteries, but then looked up the address of the cemetery and showed me where it was. It is on the east side of town surrounded on three sides by a bus factory. One asks the guard at one of its gates for the keys to the cemetery and the burial house which has a museum of the Jewish community.
We had lunch and visited the monument to the destroyed
synagogue in town. It is a 6 or seven foot high menorah next to an
insurance company office.
It was cold and rainy, almost snowing. Really raw weather.
The Weather...
Despite this, the visit to the cemetery was quite exciting. It is divided up into about eight sections, of which four are the major sections used.
Here are some pictures of the Ceske Budejovice Cemetery
Section 1 is the oldest, with the earliest graves from the 1870s. There I immediately found Lowit and Lobl gravestones. My wife and I split up looking for Philipp LEDERERís grave. After 15 or 20 minutes of fruitless search, I had the bright idea of looking in the burial house for a directory. Luckily, I found it. Not only did they have a book with all burial locations by name, there was a chart with the location of each. We quickly discovered that the oldest section had most of its stones standing.
But Phillipís was not there. After a few nervous trips back and forth to the house, I located a stone that was supposed to be right next to PLís. So I starting digging with my hands, ripping up the sod, looking..... Just below the sod I found the stone! It was fairly large, and I had no tools. I improvised. I used my stiff hairbrush as a tool and found an old can and filled it with water to use as a cleaning agent. I used some of my black socks to use as a rag. It took a while but I cleaned it off. But I was very dirty, wet and cold. Quickly, I looked at the register for the other graves of family interest. I discovered that almost all of the gravestones of my g grandmotherís family (Taussig and Lobl) are gone (or perhaps buried). Further, these are mostly in the newer sections of the cemetery, where most of the stones are absent. Unlike near PLs grave, there were many, many missing stones. I could find no stones right next to my relatives. Instead. typically there was a gap of 5-10 stones, which made excavation for a specific one in a short time impossible. Regretfully, I took some photos of where I thought stones stood at one time, and of the cemetery in general. I copied the pages in the directory of the Ls (Lowit, Lederer, Lobls) and Tís (Taussigs) for reference. I was in the cemetery for about 2 or 2.5 hours. I was filthy, wet and a bit disappointed. My wife and son had long ago fled for the car.
Here are some gravestones we saw
Phillipp
LEDERER
Daniel LOWIT, Katherina TAUSSIG LOBL, Joshua LOBL and others