The destruction of the Ústí cemetery became an integral part of the propaganda of the Sudeten German exiles. In the mid-1950s, a correspondent for the Aussiger Bote magazine described the state of the cemetery in these words:
“The scene that our central cemetery in Aussig presents to the visitor is simply appalling. The sight demands strong nerves, and I can hardly hold back tears of anger and sorrow. What I see here is not natural decay; it is desecration. Almost all the tombstones and many of the stones are broken, there is rubble everywhere. There is hardly a figure, a Christ, a cross, where parts have not broken off. Tombstones lie scattered all around, the tombs are open, full of rubbish and rubble; in several tombs and on some tombstones people have defecated. I am looking for two graves that I know of, and I can no longer find them.
The buildings on both sides of the main entrance (morgue, etc.) are ruins, some without roofs. The empty rooms are apparently used as toilets by workers from the nearby chemical factory. All the trees have been felled; the wood was cut and stacked and is being stolen piece by piece. Only the Jewish graves, I was told, had to remain untouched.
When I leave this place of horror after two hours, I am completely dejected. And yet I cannot resist and the day before my return journey I walk there once more and say goodbye. They say that even the Czechs are ashamed of the state of the Ústí cemetery, but nothing is being done about it; it is simply not part of the 'plan'.”
A few years later, the same author told readers that the Jewish cemetery had also been razed to the ground.
Above: Cemetery entrance, 1958 Below: Central Cemetery, 1964 Photo from Aussiger Bote magazine cleaned up using AI, source: Ústí nad Labem City Archives.
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