The Jewish cemetery at Jonava, Lithuania, is listed as a Cultural Heritage site and one of the best preserved and best maintained in Lithuania, but discoveries are still being made there.
Within the past few days, several buried matzevot were uncovered during construction of a sports arena near the site.
The finds were reported to the Cultural Heritage Department of the Culture Ministry, which ordered a halt to the construction and informed the Jewish community and the NGO Maceva, which preserves Jewish cemeteries, of the situation. Maceva says that construction will be suspended until it is clear what part of cemetery is in the building site, and that archeological work will probably be undertaken.
According to Maceva, it appears that this part of the cemetery was probably destroyed during the Soviet era, meaning that the original area of the cemetery was much larger than that known today.
See pictures of the recovered stones on the Maceva Facebook page
See pictures of the Jonava Jewish cemetery on the Maceva Facebook page
3 comments on “Buried matzevot found at Jonava, Lithuania”
A serious comment on a serious subject and I thank you for this. Thru Google I have found the synagogues at Horodok (“Re-purposed” {!} ) and several at Slonim. Also some suspicious sites in various towns in Lite. Yonova —from which my families came (Sudarsky,maternal & Sisitzky,paternal) seems to have leveled the entire Jew neighborhood/s but the entire town looks like one ugly and impersonal 7 story crumbling housing block/s. By good luck I found the remnant of the Beit Hamidrash Hagadol (thru Lat. and Long. markings) and it is sickening to see what it is being used for. I have photos of all the above. Sidney Sisk, Architect.
p.s. : If you know data re the two names referenced above please send it to me.Also add to the above 2 names (Sudarsky, Sisitzky) Foint, and Vinik / Winneck, Vaneyck (the last attests to the movement from Spain to Holland to Lithuania and is my Bubbe’s maiden name.) Thank you.
Thanks. There are two former synagogues in Jonava — I noted them in my book “National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: a Guide to Eastern Europe.” They are also described in detail in the “Synagogues in Lithuania” catalogue, volume 1. Both were brutally repurposed and in fairly poor condition when I visited, but both had plaques showing that they had been synagogues. Haven’t been there for some years, though. As for the names — JHE does not carry out genealogy research; there are links on the web site you can use as resources.
It is well known to anyone who has visited Lithuanian cemeteries that the “well-preserved” aspects of many (most?) sites actually only include fragments (often small) of the original burial areas; usually clusters of still-visible gravestones. In the early 1990s efforts were made (by the government) to fence and protect these areas, and to include memorial markers. While the effort was a good one – if also had the effect of de-sacralizing, and removing from memory, large areas where stones were not visible even though any good effort of scraping the surface might have revealed them, and where burials presumably remain in situ. I can remember seeing one site with a public toilet and make-shift housing built less then a hundred feet from the fenced area on land that was obviously (to anyone who had ever visited as Jewish cemetery) part of the original “House of the Living”. Unlike many other Central and Eastern European countries, Lithuania has not even one single person working to monitor and protect Jewish heritage sites – those in the possession of the official Jewish community and the much larger number owned and administered by local governments. It should be a priority for those who care about Jewish heritage in Lithuania (and the sanctity of burial sites there) that funds be raised to create a full time staff position. Other countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, etc) have one or more people in similar positions doing essential work. It is hard enough for the Lithuanian Jewish Community and other concerned groups to be re-active; to be pro-active in protecting these places we need constant hands, eyes and a competent and confident voice at work.