The growth of Mikulov dates from the period following the expulsion of the Jews from Austria in 1421, after which the town became the spiritual and cultural centre of Judaism in Moravia. Established around the Old Synagogue (built in 1550 and then rebuilt in 1719) and its cemetery, the Jewish community once played an important role in local life - by the mid 18C half of the town's inhabitants were Jewish. Of the 472 Jews who lived here in 1938, 145 survived the Holocaust.