Summer’s here, and the time is right for helping to clean up old Jewish cemeteries in eastern Europe — in particular, to cut grass and weeds, get rid of trash and other seasons work. The vegetation from one wet spring (and this spring was long and wet in many places) can make even a well tended cemetery look neglected. (Just ask anyone with a lawn!)
Here are some programs where people can volunteer to help. There are also others, which we will post if we get the links to them:
Jewish Cemetery in Zdunska Wola, Poland
There will be a clean-up day on July 24. Volunteers are asked to bring a lawn-mower, if they have one!
Contact kamila.klauzinska @ poczta.onet.pl
Jewish Cemetery in Linkmenys, Lithuania
The Maceva NGO is calling for “a big group of people” to clean this cemetery.
“The grass is as tall as me and even taller! The cemetery is marked as a State protected object… but it looks like people from municipality who are send to “cut” grass are usually cheating and they cut just a small part of entrance to cemetery, like for example is also in Žemaičių Naumiestis, the rest of territory is almost a forest and such thing happens in many other places. They cut a few meters and they think it’s done.”
Christian Herrmann notes cemetery clean-up work camps for the Jewish cemetery in Chernivtsi (Czernowitz)
Action Reconciliation (Aktion Sühnezeichnen) cemetery clear-up camps
This German NGO sponsors a number of work and study camps each year, where volunteers can help clean up Jewish cemeteries.
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Action Reconciliation Service for Peace offers a lot of summer camps to clean up Jewish cemeteries from France to Belarus this summer. An overview is here: https://www.asf-ev.de/en/summer-camps/programme-2013.html