USTI NAD LABEM

USTI NAD LABEM (Czech Ústí nad Labem; Ger. Aussig), town in N. Bohemia, Czech Republic. Isolated Jewish families may have settled in the town in the 16th century, but later the German burghers did not permit Jews to live there. Jews returned to the town after 1848. In 1880 there were 30 Jewish families in Usti; 95 families in 1863; and 985 persons in 1930. The first prayer room was established in 1863 and Kultusgemeinde in 1866. A formal congregation was established in 1869 which, in 1888, hired its first rabbi. In the years before World War II, Usti was one of the centers of the Nazi Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei), and Jews were subjected to violence. In the summer and fall of 1938, most Jews left Usti for Prague and other localities. In November 1938, after the Munich agreement, the few Jews that remained in Usti were sent to extermination camps. In 1945–48, most of the German inhabitants were expelled to Germany. After the Soviet annexation of Carpatho-Rus, local Jews opted for Czechoslovakia; many of them settled in the depopulated Suden region. A new Jewish congregation was established in Usti. In 1948 it totaled 800. The congregation continued to exist in the early 21st century. Usti is the native town of artist Ernst Neuschul-Norland (1895–1968), who painted the portrait of the first Czechoslovak president. Another Usti native, Ignatz Petschek, owned the north Bohemian lignite mines. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Stoessler, in: H. Gold, (1934), 19–22; Beitraege zur Heimatkunde des Aussig-Karbitzer Bezirkes (1926); J. Fiedler, Jewish Sights of Bohemia and Moravia (1991). (Yeshayahu Jelinek (2nd ed.)