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CEMETERIES

1943 the beginning

1943, THE BEGINNING of the end of the Jewish cemetery. The robbery of graves by the Cossacks who served the Germans

Almost one hundred of the matzevot are mostly intact

ALMOST ONE HUNDRED OF THE MATZEVOT ARE MOSTLY INTACT. Over 150 historic Jewish tombstones have been unearthed during construction in the market square of Leżajsk. It is the largest such discovery in Poland for many years. Before the Holocaust, the Polish town had a large Jewish population and became an important site for Hasidic Judaism. During and after the war, with Jews expelled, ghettoized or murdered, gravestones were taken from the Jewish cemetery to be used in construction. Those now discovered under the square were used by the German occupiers when laying a road. They have been gradually uncovered over recent weeks, after renovation works began in early June, reports Gazeta Wyborcza. The tombstones had been buried below a layer of sand, brick and asphalt along a 30-metre stretch of road. As a result, many have been better conserved than the surviving tombstones at the local Jewish cemetery, with lively colors and relief ornaments.

Belarus town shocked

BELARUS TOWN SHOCKED to discover buildings and pavements built of gravestones of Jews the Nazis tried to erase. Jewish headstones have been turning up all over the city of Brest. Many have been used in house basements and some as garden paving. Hundreds were unearthed in May by diggers on a supermarket building site. UK charity The Together Plan wants them to be turned into a memorial. Over 30,000 Jews in Brest were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The headstones were part of a cemetery desecrated by the Soviets.

DEBRA BRUNNER

DEBRA BRUNNER of the together plan stands in a warehouse in Brest, surrounded by the broken headstones. The together plan.

DESTROYED JEWISH CEMETERY IN SALONIKA

DESTROYED JEWISH CEMETERY IN SALONIKA, view of the destroyed Jewish cemetery in German-occupied Salonika. The tombstones would be used as building materials. Salonika, Greece, after December 6, 1942.

Each year millions

EACH YEAR MILLIONS of visitors walk through the cobbled streets of Prague's Old Town - without realizing, most likely, that many of the stones below their feet have been looted from what was meant to be sacred ground.

Grave-memorials

GRAVE-MEMORIALS in Section 5B in the older Jewish section of Vienna’s Central Cemetery. Tim Corbett

ILLUSTRATIONS BY VLADIMIR GUBENKO

ILLUSTRATIONS BY VLADIMIR GUBENKO, author of 'Best of My Memory 30-60s of the XX century'
A part of the Jewish cemetery in Tarnow, destroyed during the Holocaust.

In this picture taken on

IN THIS PICTURE TAKEN ON Monday Oct. 26, 2015, Tomas Jelinek looks at pavement made of tombstones in efforts to restore a former Jewish cemetery in Prostejov, Czech Republic. (AP Photo/Petr Josek)

Jewish and Christian clergy

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CLERGY stand together for prayers for the souls of some 60 Jews murdered by the occupying Nazi German forces during a ceremony marking a memorial to the victims in Wojslawice, Poland, October 14, 2021. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Jewish Cemetery in Karczew, Poland

JEWISH CEMETERY IN KARCZEW, POLAND, most people assume that Poland’s destroyed Jewish burial grounds were desecrated by the Nazis. An expert on Jewish cemeteries in Poland, however, said Polish citizens likely did more damage after the war than the country’s German occupiers.

Jewish cemetery of Salonica

JEWISH CEMETERY OF SALONICA, British officer looking at gravestones from the desecrated Jewish cemetery used to construct German defenses, 1944.

JEWISH CEMETERY STANISLAVOV, POLAND

JEWISH CEMETERY STANISLAVOV, POLAND, on 12 October 1941, during the so-called Bloody Sunday, some 10,000–12,000 Jews were shot into mass graves at the Jewish cemetery by the German uniformed SS-men from SIPO and Order Police battalions assisted by the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. Dr. Tenenbaum of the Judenrat refused the offer of exemption and was killed along with the others. Two months after that, the ghetto was established officially for the 20,000 Jews still remaining and sealed off with walls on 20 December 1941. Over a year later, in February 1943, the Ghetto was officially closed, when no more Jews were held in it. The Jewish cemetery was used to shoot the local Jews in mass graves.

Jewish Cemetery, Warsaw

JEWISH CEMETERY, WARSAW, graves at Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery.

JEWISH CEMETERY

JEWISH CEMETERY, picture of the Jewish cemetery in Chernivtsi, row of graves. The cemetery has four mass graves: Jewish soldiers of Austrian army from World War I (1914–1918), Turkish soldiers, Romanian citizens who died in 1941–1942, and Jewish civilians, victims of Holocaust in 1941.

JEWISH COMMUNITY OF JAVOROV

JEWISH COMMUNITY OF JAVOROV, Javorov is a Galizian city close to Lviv, which before the war had a Jewish population of 3000, which was added to by several thousand after the creation of a ghetto. The Jewish population were either shot during the liquidation of the ghetto or died in Belzec. After the liquidation of the ghetto a second ghetto was created whose inhabitants either died during the winter of 1942-43 or were shot in the nearby forest in March 1943.

JEWISH DESTRUCTION

JEWISH DESTRUCTION, Nazis destroyed Jewish cemeteries everywhere in their path.

Jewish people forced

JEWISH PEOPLE FORCED to dig their own graves in Ukraine, 1941. Photo courtesy the German State Archives/Bundesarchiv

JEWISH VICTIMS EXECUTED

JEWISH VICTIMS executed by Nazis at the Jewish cemetery in Lviv, western Ukraine Image by Wikimedia Commons Jewish victims executed by Nazis at the Jewish cemetery in Lviv, western Ukraine Image by Wikimedia Commons

JEWS OF POSTAVY

JEWS OF POSTAVY, Postavy Jewish cemetery. “When we went to the ghetto, it was my mother and three daughters and a son.” Her brother had slept outside in the barn the night the men of her family were rounded up to be shot. In that ghetto was a group that worked with the partisans, a resistance force of native Poles and Russians.”

JOSEFOV JEWISH GHETTO CEMETERY

JOSEFOV JEWISH GHETTO CEMETERY, the remnants of the Jewish Cemetery in Jozefow. At the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Jozefow was bombed by the German Luftwaffe and a large part of the town center was destroyed. At the end of September 1939, as part of the Ribbentrop- Molotov pact the Soviet Army entered Jozefow, but after a short occupation they left the town. Approximately 1,000 local Jews decided to go with them and settle in the Soviet Union. Only the very poor stayed in Jozefow.

MASS GRAVE JEWISH VICTIMS GROJEC

MASS GRAVE JEWISH VICTIMS GROJEC, mass grave Jewish victims, Grojec. With the entry of the German army on Sept. 8, 1939, terrorization of the Jewish population began. The synagogue was burned. On Sept. 12, 1939, all men between the ages of 15 and 55 were forced to assemble at the market, and from there were marched on foot to Rawa Mazowiecka, about 37 mi. (60 km.) away. Many were shot on the way. During the spring of 1940 about 500 Jews from Lodz and the vicinity were forced to settle in Grojec. In July 1940 a ghetto was established and the plight of the Jewish inhabitants drastically deteriorated. They suffered from hunger, epidemics, and lack of fuel during the winter of 1940–41. About 1,000 fled to Bialobrzegi and were murdered there or deported to Treblinka in the fall of 1942. The Grojec ghetto was liquidated on February 28, 1942, when most of the remaining Jews were deported to the Warsaw ghetto to share the fate of the Jews there. Of those still in Grojec, 83 were deported after some time to a slave labor camp in Russia near Smolensk, where almost all were murdered. The last 250 Jews were executed in the summer of 1943 in a forest near Gora Kalwaria.

More than 150 Jewish gravestones

MORE THAN 150 JEWISH GRAVESTONES looted by the Nazis to make a ROAD are discovered by builders in a town square in Poland. The discovery was made during construction work in Leżajsk, when workers removed a layer of asphalt. Some gravestones have kept their original colours, showing blue, green, yellow, and red letter inscriptions. and red letter inscription. German troops occupied the Polish town shortly after the outbreak of World War Two in September 1939.

Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague

OLD JEWISH CEMETERY, PRAGUE where thousands of gravestones are crammed into the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague.

Polish couple uncovers Jewish gravestones in their barn

POLISH COUPLE UNCOVERS JEWISH GRAVESTONES IN THEIR BARN. When Monika and Christopher Frelian discovered the stones beneath the floorboards near Kielce, the Hebrew engravings testified to their origin and they soon returned them to a Jewish cemetery.