Old Jewish Cemetery, Česká Lípa

Gold's collaborator Rabbi Bernard Wolf, who compiled the motto "Leipe", also lists the families from 1724, where he mentions 358 people and the fact that then two thirds of Leipzig's Jewry were old local families, about a third then Jews came from across the area and other countries, many of whose names can be found on tombs in the cemetery.

In December 1744, there was a pogrom against Jews by the Prussian pandurs of Major (Lieutenant) Schimpsen in Česká Lípa. The pogrom lasted from about 10am to 4pm, and left 30 dead and 40 injured. The cash and goods seized totalled about 30,000 gold. The local Jews fled from the town to hide in the woods. Some of the wounded and dead were not found until several weeks after the incident, according to period sources. In the cemetery there is still a monument (No. 062) built by the local Chevra Kadisha on the anniversary of this event. The monument is now badly damaged. There are only three tombstones in the cemetery dating to 1744. (Nos. 021, 023 and 052), but these are tombstones of people who died before the date of the pogrom.

In 1850, a wave of cholera and dysentery hit Česká Lípa. According to the registries, this year shows probably the highest number of deaths. Given not only the higher percentage of Jewish settlement, but especially the cause of death.

The local Beit-Olam is so small that experts believe – given that the area of the cemetery is somehow higher than the rest of the terrain – that there was burial in layers – however, this is only a presumption if not likely. If burials were done in Česká Lípa, in the 1920s the cemetery would have to look roughly the same as the old Prague cemetery. A Jewish community with functioning Chevra Kadisha, Naase mitzvot, Bikur cholim, and Banot Zion (female offshoot of Chevra Kadisha) would find it difficult to allow older matzevas to remain covered in soil and not be planted on the surface. After all, flat (buried) older tombstones would also make further burials considerably more difficult. On the other hand, it is documented that the old cemetery was demolished by the Nazis during the war. A number of tombstones were forcibly removed and used to fill the Ploučnice arm.

The last burial in the cemetery was held in 1905,[1] and the Jews established a new burial ground. From about 1903 to 1905, there was still a kind of Jewish department at the communal cemetery. The new cemetery with a ceremonial building in the Moorish style survived the war, but was liquidated, sold and robbed in the years of normalization around 1983.

In the 1990s, the cemetery underwent extensive reconstruction. The repair, modification and partial revitalization of the old cemetery was completed in 1999. After the modifications, half of the cemetery became a lapidary.

Rabbi Bernard Wolf also mentions in Gold that the registries of the dead began to be kept consistently from 1782. However, the online registries made available by the research room only include volumes iii. and iv, covering 1839–1865 and 1875–1949 respectively.