[Cz-L] Locating graves in the Cz. Jewish cemetery

I would like to comment on the recent correspondence within the list
about locating graves in the Czernowitz Jewish cemetery.

The Jewish cemetery of Czernowitz/Chernivtsi belongs to the city,
is declared a national monument of Ukraine and is still in use.
Reason, propriety, custom and probably law dictate that it should be
possible for visitors to have access to the burial registers
and the map of the cemetery as it was before 1945.

Instead this map is no longer available, nor are copies of the burial
registers and that is why anyone searching for a grave has to pay various
"helpers" to locate graves for them. These "helpers" also get paid for
cutting a path through the jungle of vines and nettles or for maintaining
a cleared area around a particular grave. It is a whole industry.
It is not in the interest of the "helpers" that the burial registers
and the old map be available to all free of charge. Neither is it
in their interest that the cemetery be free of weedy and invasive plants.
Some of the invasive plants in the cemetery are not native to the region,
or even Europe. Nor have I seen them in other parts of Chernivtsi, which
makes me wonder whether they have been planted on purpose in order to make
it difficult to reach the graves.

We, as people who have relatives and ancestors interned in this cemetery,
ought to ask ourselves what is in our best interest. Support the "helpers",
or try to put them out of business and make the city live up to it's
obligations?

Volunteers from the Ottawa Jewish community made copies of the old burial
registers and these have largely been transcribed by Bruce Reisch and some
members of this list. The volunteers from Ottawa also photographed all the
graves and noted their location according to the new map of the cemetery.
By comparing the location of any given grave according to the burial
registers, with it's location according to the current map, it should be
possible to derive a reasonably accurate map of the cemetery as it was
before 1945, which would allow anyone to locate the graves of those who were
interned before 1945.

We need to obtain the permission of the Jewish community of Ottawa to make
the copied and transcribed burial register public on our website.
Bruce may also require additional volunteers to finish the transcription.
Then we need to derive the a reasonable map of the cemetery as it was
before 1945.

This summer a group of students from Israel will be working on documenting
the cemetery, another group of young people organized by SVIT Ukraine, while
mostly working on clearing the cemetery of weeds, creepers, small trees and
bushes, will also do some work on photographing graves. The goal of having a
complete register of the graves as well as a useful map of their location,
is attainable.

Please comment as you see fit.

Mimi
 
       
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Received on 2009-02-23 20:20:47