Jewish Cemetery Preservation Persists in Central Europe
On July 28, more than a thousand gravestones were brought together for a moving ceremony at the former Brest-Litovsk Jewish Cemetery in Brest, Belarus. It was the synthesis of twelve years of arduous and impassioned preparation, work, and collaboration by The Together Plan—consisting of the U.S.-based Jewish Tapestry Project and the Jewish Religious Union of Belarus. The event honored a centuries-old Jewish community that had been desecrated by the Nazis and later dishonored by its Soviet occupants.
The gravesite had shamefully been turned into a track field.
On hand were representatives from the British, Bulgarian, Austrian, and German embassies, as well as the Polish consulate. Arthur Livshyts, who serves as co-founder of The Together Plan and chair of the Jewish Religious Union in Belarus, led the proceedings.
“For me, this monument is an act of justice, honoring, and reclamation,” said Stephen Grynberg, who gave the cornerstone funding for the project and commissioned the memorial’s design.
“Upon seeing the headstones for the first time, the idea of returning dignity to this place, to the people buried there, and to the vibrant Jewish community they created, was an obvious antidote to the attempted erasure. Growing up in Soviet Belarus, Jewish history was a shadow—present but unspoken, a silent grief buried beneath the weight of enforced silence,” Grynberg also said.
The Matzevah Foundation in neighboring Poland mobilizes volunteers and archeologists from around the country and abroad. Their mission is assisting with rigorous cleanup of Jewish cemeteries and burial sites. Matzevah, which means headstones in Polish, has reinvigorated active interest in the once-thriving Jewish presence in and around the region.
“Cemetery care can slowly transform a site from a place of cultural description to a place of education and history,” says Marla Raucher Osborn, the founder and CEO of Rohatyn Jewish Heritage. A transactional attorney in Northern California, Osborn is also a Fulbright U.S. Scholar whose work with Jewish heritage in Central Europe has been commendable. Her brainchild, working alongside her husband, Jay, and many volunteers, revitalizes memories of the long-standing, proud Jewish communities in Poland and Ukraine.
Rohatyn’s mission has “networked with experts and activists in the region to share ideas and resources.” For almost two decades, Osborn has continued to make frequent trips to Rohatyn, Ukraine, the town where her paternal grandmother lived decades ago, to clean and preserve Jewish headstones. While doing her work with Rohatyn, which maintains four Jewish burial sites, Osborn regularly lives in Lviv. With her team, over 600 Jewish headstone fragments in Rohatyn have been recovered.
Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine also weighs heavily on Osborn’s mind.
“Unless Ukraine wins this war, I am no longer optimistic about the future of Jewish heritage projects in either Ukraine or Poland,” says Osborn.
