LOSTICE

LOSTICE (Czech Loštice; Ger. Loschitz), village in N.W. central Moravia, until 1992 Czechoslovak Republic and thereafter Czech Republic. Jewish settlement is first mentioned in Lostice in 1544. Another record, from 1630, mentions that there were 21 houses of Jewish ownership; only ten were inhabited after the Thirty Years' War (1650). A large number of Lostice Jews attended the Leipzig fairs in the 18th century. The community increased after the mid-17th century, when Jews were expelled from Ukraine and lower Austria. In Lostice there were 80 Jewish families (328 persons); 17 houses are recorded in 1727. In 1798 the number of families allotted to Lostice was 71 (see familants law ). Before that time, Jewish houses had stood very close to the Catholic Church; but in 1727 the Jews were forced to move to other places, where they formed a ghetto. Their number declined sharply after the emancipation allowed the Jews freedom of movement. The number fell from 438 in 1848 to 284 in 1869, and to 115 in 1900. In 1921 there were 2,708 Jews. In 1928 most of the Jewish quarter was destroyed by fire. In 1930, 55 Jews were left in the town. By 1938 six families remained. They were all deported during the Holocaust; 11 returned from the Nazi concentration camps. The synagogue was destroyed on November 11,   1938. The religious community was not revived after World War II. The synagogue, probably from 1805, was used until the Nazi occupation; subsequently it was used as a storehouse. In 1966–80 it housed a municipal museum with an exhibition of the history of the Jewish community. Later, it served as an art and music school. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gold-Wachstein, in: H. Gold (ed.), Die Juden und Judengemeinden Maehrens in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1929), 318–20. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Fiedler, Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia (1991), 107–8. (Meir Lamed / Yeshayahu Jelinek (2nd ed.)