Ilok Old Jewish Cemetery

The Ilok Jewish cemetery was built in 1869 and remains in a good condition today. The oldest tombstone dates to 1862 and the most recent to 1941. There were 223 registered burials in the cemetery. However, in 2018, only 144 tombstones were found. Many tombstones in the cemetery have inscriptions in Yiddish and Hebrew. According to the contours of the territory of the cemetery, there were probably many more graves that have not yet been discovered. The remains of the old beit tahara (mortuary) were also found in the cemetery. The memorial sign with the names of community members who perished in the Holocaust is installed on the wall of the beit tahara.

Ilok is a town and municipality in Vukovar-Srijem County and is the administrative, economic, and cultural centre of West Serem. That area was already inhabited in the period of the Roman Empire and was well-known for its winemaking. The first mention of the town of Ilok was during Middle Ages in 1267. In the 14th century, it was a big town with the population of about 10,000 citizens. The town was under Hungarian rule and had a huge wall and a castle. During the Turkish occupation, Ilok was known as one of the most beautiful places in the region. Until the 18th century, the town was the centre for winemaking in the region. In 1857, the population of Ilok was 3,110 and in 4,856 in 1910.

Jews came to the town in the 19th century from Slovakia and formed a small Orthodox community speaking Yiddish. There were only 304 Jews in the town in 1921 and 296 in 1931. Most Jews were tradesmen and the played an important role in trading of wine, textile, and other goods. There were two synagogues and the yeshiva “Hevrat bahurim.” The first synagogue in Ilok was built in 1855 and restored after a fire in 1873. It was built on the “Jewish Street” in the Low Town. One of the most notable people from the community was Rabbi Yosef Naftali Shtern, who studied the Chatam Sofer. Before World War II, there were two Jewish Orthodox communities in the town. During the Holocaust, all Jewish inhabitants of the town perished. The synagogue was abandoned in 1941 and sold and demolished in 1948. The building of the second synagogue still existed in the town in 1990s