Prof. Heidi M. Szpek has written an illustrated special report for JHE on the work that was carried out last summer, 2017, in the Bagnówka Jewish cemetery in Białystok, Poland, as part of the long-term restoration of the cemetery, the only surviving Jewish cemetery in Białystok.
Her report describes new discoveries as well as the process of carrying out the work to re-erect, re-set, and clean the gravestones.
She also reports on some of the epitaphs that were newly documented and translated — including one of a murder victim and one of one of the very few women, a doctor, to have their professional qualifications included in the inscriptions on their gravestones.
(NOTE: All photographs are copyright of Heidi M. Szpek or the Bialystok Jewish Cemetery Restoration Project.)
In February 2017, Szpek wrote a Have Your Say op-ed describing how she was drawn to translate the epitaphs on the cemetery’s gravestones and reveal vivid portraits of Białystok’s Jews, their lives, and their community.