As far back as we can trace the Beran family name, it comes from Boskovice in Moravia. Now in the Czech Republic, in Austro-Hungarian times, known as Boskowitz, it was a major regional Jewish community, one of the largest of the 52 historic Jewish communities of Moravia.
Boskovice promotes its Jewish heritage, as some 70 houses in the town today remain from the Jewish town. The town publishes a leaflet Boskovice Jewish Town in English.
The main square, Ringplatz, in Boskowitz
Article on Jewishgen about Boskovice. This lists available Jewish birth, marriage & death records covering the period 1822-1948, but many were destroyed by fire or during World War II. This makes it very difficult to prove family relationships during the 19th century or earlier.
The Jewish Community of Brno site about nearby towns with a Jewish heritage has a page about Boskovice. From this page you can download a video of buildings in the old ghetto and of the cemetery.
The Jewish Cemetery
The International Jewish Cemetery Project has a page describing the Jewish cemetery of Boskovice, which is in Potoní ulice.
Photos of gravestones taken by students of the Gymnazium
Video of the cemetery, with Czech text
Description of young volunteers’ project to work on Boskovice cemetery in 2002 (in Czech)
Further Reference
A new book about Moravian Jewry, Rabbis and Revolution: The Jews of Moravia in the Age of Emancipation mentions Boskovice many times. This is the first book on Moravian Jewry since Hugo Gold’s Die Juden und Judengemeinden Maehrens in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in 1929. Extracts can be seen on website of publisher Stanford University Press.
The Beran family 
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