Trebic, Czechoslovakia

Trebic, Moravia, Czechoslovakia, today Czech Republic. Tradition speaks of a synagogue dating to the tenth century. A number of Jews were murdered in Trebic during the Pulkau blood libel of 1338 and King Matthias Corvinus destroyed the whole city in 1464. In the late 16th century Jews engaged in money lending, traded in old clothes and worked as tanners and distillers. They manufactured gloves, boots and soap and supplied wool to weavers. In 1799 the Jewish population was 1.770 (total 3.012) with 92 Jews registered as merchants. Floods, fires and epidemics struck the community repeatedly in the 16th-19th century. In 1849-1925 the community enjoyed political autonomy but from the late 19th century the Jewish population declined steadily as many left for Jihlava, Brno and Vienna. The ghetto, established no later than the 16th century, has been preserved to the present day. The Jewish cemetery contains about 11.000 graves. The Nazis deported the city‘s 281 Jews together with the Jews of the Jihlava district to the Theresienstadt ghetto on 18 and 22 May 1942. Many were sent on to the Lublin district (Poland) in the same month or to the Treblinka death camp in October. The rest were deported to Auschwitz in 1943-44. Thirty-five survived.