Plzen, Czechoslovakia

Plzen (Pilsen) Bohemia, Czechoslovakia. Dozens of Jewish families, with a small synagogue and cemetery at their disposal, were present by 1315. In 1505 they were expelled in a Host desecration libel, only returning in the mid-19th cent. In 1850, Plzen became the seat of the district rabbinate. A cemetery was consecrated in 1856 and a synagogue in 1859. A new synagogue with 2,800 seats was completed in 1893, the second largest in Europe after the one in Budapest. Jews helped make Plzen important industrial center—the Skoda armaments factory was located here—and the community became one of the five largest and richest in Bohemia by the early 20th century, its population reaching a peak of 3,517 in 1910. Between the World Wars, the Zionists were active. In 1930, the Jewish population was 2,738 (total 89,374). The Gemran occupation of March 1939 brought persecution and arrests. Fifty-one Jews in an underground anti-Nazi group were arrested in 1940 and ultimately deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp. In January 1942, 2,604 Jews from Plzen and western Moravia were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in three transports and from there to death camps in Poland where 2,400 perished.