The European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF) has inaugurated a new web site dedicated to its ongoing, EU co-funded survey and mapping project of 1,500 Jewish cemeteries in five countries: Greece, Lithuania, Moldova, Slovakia, and Ukraine.
The site includes an open access data base including all the cemetery sites being surveyed by ESJF teams in 2019-2020.
Information for each cemetery — including aerial photo, historical data, geographical data, and cemetery threat assessment — is being uploaded to the web site as the research and mapping of each cemetery is completed and processed.
The new web site also includes information on the methodology of the survey, which uses drones to photograph the cemeteries.
The mapping process is undertaken using state-of-the-art technology specially designed for the project, involving engineering drones which survey and photograph the sites from the air. Centuries–old records across many countries and languages are consulted to write the sites’ history. Signs are placed at each site surveyed, marking the work that has been done.
The ESJF received in January an €800,000 grant from the EU for the project, which is formally called “Pilot project – Protecting the Jewish cemeteries of Europe: A full mapping process with research and monitoring and individual costed proposals for protection.”
See a sample of the drone documentation of the New Jewish Cemetery in Rhodes, Greece.
In Moldova and Ukraine, the new ESJF surveys expand the material gathered in surveys of Jewish heritage sites conducted years ago under the auspices of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. These surveys, which also include synagogues, are online at Moldova (2010) and Ukraine (2005).
Access the new ESJF Surveys web site