In a show of support for efforts to preserve Jewish cemeteries, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland will visit the Jewish cemetery in Frampol, in southeast Poland, on April 5, the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF), which works to protect Jewish burial grounds in Central and Eastern Europe, has announced.
The cemetery was rededicated in October after being fenced and provided with a new gate under the efforts of the ESJF and the Foundation for the Protection of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ); local schoolchildren help clean up and maintain the site. According to Virtual Shtetl, it includes around 85 matzevot. In November 1942, the Nazis murdered about 1,000 Frampol Jews and buried them in a mass grave at the cemetery site; a memorial was erected there in 2007.
Jagland will be joined in the visit by former Israeli minister Yossi Beilin and will
engage with pupils from Frampol’s school who have helped in the protection of the local Jewish cemetery, a site owned by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ), which is the Polish partner of the ESJF. Jagland will explain to them the value of cultural heritage prior to a visit and ceremony at the Frampol Jewish cemetery.
An ESJF news release noted that “The Council of Europe supports such projects under the 2005 Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro Convention). The convention links the concept of the ‘common heritage of Europe’ to human rights and the fundamental freedoms for which the Council of Europe remains one of the historic guardians.”
It quoted Jagland as saying: “The Council of Europe supports projects of cultural heritage which contribute to reconciliation, mutual understanding and inclusive societies. I am grateful to the ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, for sharing our vision and promoting Jewish heritage which is integral to our common European culture and society.”
“We are in a race against time to protect the last physical vestiges of Jewish presence in the thousands of towns and villages of Central and Eastern Europe wiped out by the Nazis,” Philip Carmel, chief executive of the ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, said in the statement. “Our role is to physically protect these sites, and we must act now as memory becomes history and it will soon be too late.”
He added: “Ultimately, it’s not fences that protect Jewish cemeteries, but people. Long-term protection requires the mobilization and concern of local people. Protecting the Jewish heritage also means protection one’s own local heritage.”
The ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative was set up as a German-based non-profit organization in early 2015. Its core objective is protecting and preserving Jewish cemetery sites across the European continent through delineation of cemetery boundaries and the construction of cemetery walls and locking gates. It has received funding from the German Foreign Ministry in both 2015 and 2016.
During its pilot year, the ESJF completed more than 30 fencing projects in Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic. In 2016, it is expanding its activities in into Belarus, Serbia and Hungary.
Click to see full announcement on ESJF web site
Click to see a photo gallery of the October 2015 rededication cemetery of Frampol Jewish cemetery