Jewish Graveyards
Many Jews from Laa/Thaya were buried at the Jewish cemetery in Mistelbach since the Jewish community was part of the Jewish Religious Community there. The first generation of people having moved to Laa was often buried in graveyards in their old hometowns, e.g. in Moravia. In 1998 I published an article (“Returning the names”) on the Jewish graveyard of Mistelbach in the magazine “David”. You can also view a site plan and a list of names of the buried on this website.
Here I am at the end of the 1990s when cleaning and renovating a headstone at the Jewish cemetery in Mistelbach
It is quite likely that a Jewish graveyard existed in Laa, too, at some time. Leopold Moses was the last historian and author who visited the Jewish communities of the Lower Austrian Wine Region before their extinction. In one of his essays he mentions Laa. He was an exact chronicler and therefore it is unlikely that he relied on pure gossip when he wrote:
“Also in Laa a. d. Thaya some - now no longer traceable – Hebrew headstones were found.” (Leopold Moses, PhD, Die Juden in Niederoesterreich – Mit besonderer Beruecksichtigung des XVII. Jahrhunderts, editor Heinrich Glanz, PhD, Vienna 1935, p. 114)
The old field name “At the Jew’s Meadow”, referring to a piece of real estate close to the local high school could hint to an old graveyard according to the synagogue expert Pierre Genee. It is unlikely though that proofs for that will ever be found.