Holesov

Holesov has a baroque chateau rebuilt in the 1650s for Jan Rottal by Filiberto Lucchese, with a sala terrena and a French garden, and a large church of St Anne with a Rottal mortuary chapel. But the building that brings people is the Sach Synagogue, built about 1560 and remodelled after a fire in 1725. It is of the Polish type - a squat masonry block with the prayer hall around a raised bimah, a women's gallery, and walls covered in painted Hebrew text: whole prayers, psalms and inscriptions in bands across the plaster rather than figurative decoration. Very few synagogues of this type survived the twentieth century anywhere, and this is among the best preserved. It is named after Sabbatai ha-Kohen, the Shach, a major seventeenth-century rabbinic authority who fled here from the Chmielnicki massacres and is buried in the Jewish cemetery.

History

Holešov, named after a man called Holeš, is first mentioned in 1141 in a deed of Bishop Jindřich Zdík, as a fief of the bishops of Olomouc, and between 1300 and 1322 the market village became a town. The Sternbergs acquired it in the second half of the 14th century; later owners included Karel of Zierotin and Ladislav Popel of Lobkowicz, and in 1574 the Gothic fortress was rebuilt as a Renaissance residence. In 1643, during the Thirty Years' War, the castle and two thirds of the town burned. The Rottal family, owners from 1650 to 1762, rebuilt the town with a large castle, a French garden and the church of the Assumption; after 1848 Holešov was a district town and a centre of woodworking, furniture, knitting and food industries. Jews are recorded here from 1391, a community formed after 1454, the scholar known as the Shach served as its rabbi in the 17th century, and from 1849 to 1918 it had its own administration; the Old Synagogue was built after a wooden predecessor burned in 1560 (Wikipedia, Holešov).

Highlights

• Painted Hebrew text on the walls - prayers and psalms in bands across the plaster.
• A Polish-type synagogue - a form that barely survives anywhere in Europe.
• The Shach's grave - the rabbinic authority who fled here, in the old cemetery.
• A baroque chateau - with a sala terrena and French garden.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Practical notes

The synagogue and chateau have separate tickets and hours; both are seasonal and the synagogue closes on Saturdays. The town is quiet with limited services. Head covering is expected for men.

Nearby

Kromeriz and its UNESCO gardens are twelve kilometres west.

Key facts