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Nikolsburg, strategically situated half way between the Habsburg imperial capital of Vienna and the main Moravian city of Brünn, lay just inside Moravia on a major trading route. When Czechoslovakia became independent following WWI Nikolsburg was renamed Mikulov. Jewish life here reached a peak in the early 19th century, outshining other towns in Moravia. Jews benefitted from the relatively benign regime of the Prince von Dietrichstein family, and a thriving community developed on the western slopes of the imposing hill on which stood the princely palace. Nikolsburg, the seat of the Moravian Chief Rabbi, had a well-known Yeshiva, many synagogues and a large graveyard in which many of the famous rabbis of Moravia are buried. Mikulov was part of the Sudetenland which was handed over to Hitler by the appeasers at Munich in 1938. Those who didn't escape died in the concentration camps.

Pictures

• The Rabonimplatz - last resting place of famous Moravian rabbis
• Views and panoramas of Mikulov - Nikolsburg
• Ghetto streets and backways
• The Altschul Synagogue of Nikolsburg
• The old cemetery of Nikolsburg
• Historical and ritual objects from the former Jewish Museum in Nikolsburg
• A crowd leaving the synagogue after a marriage in the 1930s.
• The destruction of the Tempelgasse.

Background Information

• A historical chronology of Nikolsburg.
• Books and articles on Nikolsburg.
• Plan of the old Nikolsburg ghetto (443 KB)
  showing which of the old houses are still standing (by kind permission
  of Ing. Arch. Jaroslav Klenovksy).

Resources

• Jewish vital data resources for Mikulov - Nikolsburg.
• A complete list of the surnames in the Nikolsburg Graveyard Register.
• The 50 commonest surnames in the Nikolsburg Graveyard Register.
• A list of published gravestone inscriptions from the Nikolsburg cemetery.
• Visitors from Nikolsburg to the Leipzig Fair in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• Name index (861 entries) to Bruno Trapp's article on Nikolsburg.

Memoirs, Family Stories and Tales of Nikolsburg

• Mikulov in the 1930s (Kurt Krakauer).
• Recollections of Nikolsburg in the 1930s (Lilly Landesman)
• Reminiscences of Nikolsburg in the 1880s (Edmund Jerusalem).
• The Eruw - a story about R. Mordechai Benett

Guest Book

• Sign our guestbook
• View our guestbook

Searchable Databases

• Would you like to search the Nikolsburg Graveyard Register Database? You can either read the Introduction first, or go straight on to a search:

  Enter TEXT: to search for in the Nikolsburg Cemetery Database,
  
  and choose the type of search Surname -- Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex

Links

• JewishGen Bohemia-Moravia Special Interest Group
• It's All Relative Genealogy Research - CR, Bohemia and Moravia
• FEEFHS map of 19th century Moravia
• The Shamash of Nikolsburg, a story about Rabbi Shmuel Shmelka
• Official homepage of Mikulov
• Brno Jewish community