The first reports on Jews in Kardašova Řečice come from the begin-ning of the 15th century. In the mid-17th century, there were 3 Jewish families living in the town; in the early 18th century around 8 Jew-ish families, then in 1840 there were 23 Jewish families (125 per-sons). From the 19th century, the number of Jews in town gradually declined: in 1880, it was 100 Jews (4% of all the town’s inhabitants), and in 1930 only 20 Jews (0.7% of all the town’s inhabitants).
The ghetto was gradually built from the middle of the 17th century in an area in the eastern half of the town. In 1755, this small quarter consisted of ten ground-floor houses that stretched between today’s Hradní Street and the Řečice Creek; to date, four of them have sur-vived, albeit reconstructed. The first prayer room was set up here in some private house ap-parently before 1650. A separate synagogue was built in 1708, but it burned down in 1863, like much of Řečice.
The new synagogue, built between 1864 and 1866, was abandoned during and after World War II and was demolished in 1958-1959. The Jewish cemetery was allegedly founded in the first half of the 17th century and was enclosed by a wall in 1673.
The present appearance of the Jewish cemetery comes from after the mid-19th century, when it was modified according to the plans of Martin Víta as elaborated in 1863. The low perimeter was then replaced by a high wall, and a morgue with a shingle roof was built at the entrance. The unusual design and simple construction of this morgue set it apart from similar buildings in other cemeteries. Two of its walls made up the northwest corner of the cemetery wall with the entrance door, while the other two sides (with no wall or door) remained open to the cemetery. The southeast corner of the building was held up by a massive brick pillar. The cemetery is located a kilometer south of the town on the blue hiking trail and holds around 160 preserved tomb-stones from the 18th century to the beginning of World War II.
Interesting: Visitors to the cemetery often seek out the Hungarian-Czech tombstone of Paul Lauer from 1908, the tombstone of the Rabbi and teacher Lazar Beneš, and the tombstone of the physician of Baron Rothschild, Gustav Hoenig.