Tabor, Czechoslovakia

Tabor, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia. Jews are first mentioned in 1548. A community was founded in 1621 and a synagogue was erected in the late 1630s. In the 17th century Jews traded in wool, hides, salt, meat and cheese and in the 18th century they were employed as butchers, bakers, farmers, glaziers, soap manufacturers, distillers, carters and knitters of socks. A new synagogue, a second cemetery and a Jewish elementary school were opened in the late 19th century, as the Jewish population rose to 455 in 1884. In 1933 265 Jews remained. The synagogue was closed down in October 1941. The Nazis subsequently destroyed the two Jewish cemeteries. In 1942 they used Tabor as a staging area for deportations from the region to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Most Jews were sent on to Auschwitz in January, September and October 1943. Seventy survived in the two transports sent to Theresienstadt on 12 November 1942 and 206 Jews married to non-Jews were still present in the city at the end of 1944. Three labor camps attached to the Flossenbuerg concentration camp operated in the area in 1943-45 as well as three detention camps including one at Plana nad Lumici for Jews in mixed marriages and one for their children.