Dear Ladies, dear Gentlemen, dear guests,

Allow me, please, to welcome you heartily at today’s ceremony for the 180th anniversary of the construction of the Ckyne synagogue and commemoration of local and nearby Jewish citizens assassinated during the German occupation.
Most of all I would like to welcome dear Alexandr Woodl from the USA, whose ancestors came from this region, and who is donating with a higher sum the restoration of the synagogue.
In the Vimperk district, former Práchen district, there existed an ancient Jewish settlement, which was violently stopped – similarly as in other places in the Czech Lands – during the Nazi occupation. The Jews, who settled there in the small town Ckyne, and in the bigger one Vimperk, and at some villages in inland (Czech), and border (German) part of the region, belonged to one religious community, which centre was Ckyne at first and lately Vimperk.
In the period of Feudalism the settlement of Jews at some place was not common – under their none sui juris position in the society. Their embedding and life in the country, region, or at a place, were conditioned with benevolence of the ruler, the Feudal authorities, the Church, with goodwill of the Christian inhabitants, calm political conditions, and peace, for the fact in the time of various tremors and struggles the Jews were always among the first victims. In Ckyne, originally a village, since the year 1537 a town, several Jewish families lived as early as at the end of the 16th century. During the Thirty-year War, which struck Ckyne as well, the number of families declined at one. The Revenue Rula (property and tax inventory) states two Jews in Ckyne for the year 1654. After the war the Jews settled in Ckyne region again and their number was increasing gradually. They were engaged most of all in sale (partly door to door), moderately in crafts, farming, and in the 19th century the most wealthy of them in finance.
The Theresian Cadastre states in the year 1748 ten Jewish families at the Ckyne manor. The Ckyne administrator Frantisek Loebl in his statistics from the year 1825 wrote down 28 Jewish houses alongside 79 Christian ones and 151 Jewish inhabitants to 526 others. Johann Gottfried Sommer in his geographical work “Das Königreich Böhmen statistisch-topographisch dargestellt” mentioned 34 Jewish families at the Ckyne manor in the year 1840 with 207 persons. (The total number was 1,823). Johann Trajer states in his work “Historisch-statistische Beschreibung der Diöcese Budweis“ for the year 1862 that in Ckyne there lived 852 Catholics and 2 Evangelic people along to 339 Israeli ones; that was probably the highest number throughout the history. Since the end of the 19th century to the end of the First Republic (1928) the most significant Jewish family in Ckyne was the Lederer family (now the house number 62 and 63).
From the background of the Ckyne community an outstanding lawyer, a professor of university JUDr. Alois Zucker came (born in Ckyne in 1842, died in Prague in1906), professor of the Czech section of the Law faculty of the Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague, and author of great scientist works, mostly in the field of crown law and order. He indorsed warmly the Czech nation and was a pioneer of so-called Czech-Jewish movement, which urged for the Czech national tendency of the Jews in our country, and became the first chairman of the Czech-Jewish National Union.
As late as in 1871 there were recorded 241 Jews in Ckyne (that was 26% of local inhabitants), later their number was declining and the Ckyne Jewish Community was dissolved. The decline turned up due to the moving to the bigger towns –Vimperk included. In the year 1930 only 3 Jewish families lived in Ckyne in number of 11 people.
The beginning of the Jewish settlement in Vimperk goes back to the 20ies of the 17th century. The number of the Jews settled in this town was significantly lower comparing the one in Ckyne. However since the end of the 19th century the number was growing considerably and the seat of the community was transferred from Ckyne to Vimperk. The Vimperk Jewish Community was founded in the year 1899.
Conversely, the German occupation broke into the life of the Jewish gregariousness in the years 1938-1939 – first the Sudety and then the whole Czechoslovakia. The Jews were relegated and they escaped to inland; some of them found the asylum in Ckyne Jewish families. The Vimperk synagogue from the year 1926 was burnt out by the Nazis during the so-called Diamond Night on November 10, 1938.
After the occupation of the Czech lands the Jewish inhabitants faced the brutal race persecution. The majority of the Czech Jews was massacred. In the year 1942 seven Jewish women and seven Jewish men were transported to the camp of concentration in Theresienstadt (ghetto); two women were tormented to death there, 12 of the others in the annihilation camp in Auschwitz, as well as one woman and one man from the nearby Zdíkov village. Only two Jewish citizens of Ckyne survived thanks to their mixed marriages. Other Ckyne natives perished, living in various places, most of all from the Lederer family.
The last Ckyne Israeli was Mrs. Caroline Spaninger died in 1984 in Breznice).

The spiritual centre of the Ckyne Jewish Community was the sanctuary – the synagogue. In the course of history there existed two synagogues in Ckyne: the old one, perhaps from 18th century serving lately as a farm house and was pulled down at the second part of the 20th century; and the new one from the year 1828 we are just inhere.
The new synagogue was built by that time owner of the Ckyne dominium, JUDr. Karel Claudi, as a compensation for the old synagogue in his Vysoký dvur mansion. The construction of the synagogue started on April 14th 1828 and on September 26th of the same year the Ckyne Jews entered their new synagogue. Later on a winter pray-room was joined, that is the room we are just sitting. The synagogue was built in a simple Classicist style and decorated beautifully, as the contemporary testaments state (F. Stán?, J.G.Sommer).
The synagogue served for regular worships until 1895, for temporary ones – according to the witnesses – perhaps till the end of the WWI. The regular worships were held in the pray-rooms in Vimperk since the year 1895. In the Ckyne synagogue there used to be a Jewish school as well and the flats of the rabbi and the cantor in the 19th century. The building in the yard served as a garage for the Jewish burial vehicle.
In the year 1922 the Jewish community sold the synagogue to the Spaningers who adapted it for a house and a carpenter workshop. The rebuilding damaged the east part with the main pray room, the west part has been preserved so far.
During the occupation Mrs. Julia Cervinka, the sister of Mrs. Spaninger , and three members of the family of the former Vimperk salesman Mr. Isidor Schwager, left this synagogue for their death.
Since the beginning of the 90ties of the 20th century the general recnovation of the synagogue has been in process. The aim is to built the South-east Bohemia Jewish Museum in the main pray room, in the winter one establish a small synagogue and at the same time a concert hall; in the other parts to create an art gallery and an exhibition hall, and in the object outside built a clubroom for young people. Unfortunately, due to lack of money the reconstruction goes on really slowly. I wish it would be finished successfully! I would like to say my heartily thanks and cordial thank goodness to Mr. Alexander Woodl, Mr. Jan Zelenka, Mr. Hermann Löffler, and all the others who promoted the renovation through their donations or work.