(JHE) — Thanks to a partnership between Jewish communal organisations, NGOs and private individuals, more than 300 matzevot used as paving in the town of Sniatyn in western Ukraine have been rescued and removed to a local Jewish cemetery. Plans are to use them to create a memorial lapidarium.
“Many people and organizations took part in the implementation of the project,” Vitaly Kamozin, the chief operations officer of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine said on Facebook. “It is very nice that even in such a difficult time, we all managed to save hundreds of matzevot, the oldest of which dates from 1761.”
He spearheaded the operation along with the leadership of the Jewish community in Ivano-Frankivsk, Igor Perelman and Maxim Murzov — and he chronicled the work on his Facebook page.
Kamozin said that the United Jewish Community of Ukraine (UJC) had been contacted at the beginning of May by a man he identified simply as Sergei, who said that he had recently purchased commercial property whose yard he found paved with Jewish headstones.
Kamozin said removal work began a week after Sergei contacted the UJC, supervised and carried out by the leadership of the Jewish community of Ivano-Frankivsk and hired workers.
It took five days to carry out the job — in total, he said, more than 300 square meters of tombstones were removed: more than 300 matzevot. The oldest legible matzevah is from 1761. They were loaded onto 92 pallets and were taken to Sniatyn’s New Jewish cemetery.
Though fenced in 2019 by the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative ESJF, the New Jewish Cemetery, founded in the 19th century, is largely overgrown and neglected.
Kamozin said the United Jewish Community team, together with the Jewish Community of Ivano-Frankivsk, hope to use the rescued stones to build a lapidarium on the site of the Old Jewish Cemetery.
They included himself, the NGO “Jewish Cultural Center “Living Memory” and Maria Mizina; the ESJF, Leonid Milman, Pierre Richard, Marina Sedova, Christian Herrmann, Marla and Jay Osborn, Evgeny Gorodetsky, the NGO “Historical and Cultural Center of the City of Uman;” Darcy Stamler, Serhii Svidzinskyi and Alik Lekhtser.
2 comments on “Ukraine: 300+ Matzevot used as paving rescued in Sniatyn”
Will a list of names in those matzevot will be extracted and published? My ancestors where from Sniatyn and I am curious to know if some matzevot belong to them.
Rohatyn Jewish Heritage was honored to support this important project, demonstrating the power of partnerships to save heritage and recover Jewish memory, even during wartime