POLAND-JEWISH CEMETERIES/DATABASE Online database logs Poland's crumbling Jewish graves

Record ID: 138033

  • Title: POLAND-JEWISH CEMETERIES/DATABASE Online database logs Poland's crumbling Jewish graves
  • Date: 24th September 2015
  • Summary: BIALYSTOK, POLAND (SEPTEMBER 17??, 2015) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) GENEALOGIST, WITOLD WRZOSINSKI, SAYING: "With time I realised that it promotes a very important idea. I felt it most when writing down the data of graves in Warsaw [where] I found big, beautiful grave. I started writing down its data when I realised that I'm writing down data which I know from my family papers, and that it was my direct forefather. And I felt something then… I have understood that it is worthwhile to allow other people to feel the same as I felt." WARSAW, POLAND (SEPTEMBER 22??, 2015) (REUTERS) GATE OF WARSAW "OKOPOWA" JEWISH CEMETERY VARIOUS OF GRAVES IN "OKOPOWA" JEWISH CEMETERY JEWISH SYMBOL ON GRAVE MAIN AVENUE OF WARSAW "BRODNO" JEWISH CEMETERY VARIOUS OF DAMAGED AND DESTROYED GRAVES IN "BRODNO" JEWISH CEMETERY LANDFILL OF MATZEVAS BIALYSTOK, POLAND (SEPTEMBER 17??, 2015) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) GENEALOGIST, REMIGIUSZ SOSNOWSKI, SAYING: "It is pretty hard to observe a remnant of the formerly large community. Now we see, as shown in this cemetery, no one visits the graves. There are tens of thousands of graves here, including around five thousand with preserved inscriptions, and nobody comes here. Maybe there are single candles somewhere."
  • Embargoed: 9th October 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Poland
  • Country: Poland
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA2QOBGLFWJDE4J7Y72AWJ7CNW3
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Hundreds of thousands of Jewish graves across Poland have been examined, logged and photographed in an ambitious but threatened online database.
    Freelance researchers working for the Foundation for Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland have created a 'Virtual Jewish Cemetery' recording a wealth of information from the country's often neglected and forgotten Jewish graves, including photos, GPS directions and details of inscriptions.
    "We write down everything. When we enter the cemetery, we mark down every stone with the name, and enter it into the database," genealogist Witold Wrzosinski told Reuters in Bialystok Jewish cemetery.
    The initial project, initiated and financed by private patron Emil Karafiol from the United States, aimed to catalogue the 80,000 Jewish graves in the Warsaw Jewish cemetery.
    Under the patronage of other private individuals and institutions, documentation grew to include 20,000 other graves around Poland.
    The country is home to approximately 1,200 Jewish cemeteries, but many have been in a declining state of disrepair since World War Two. Genealogists working on the project estimate that only about 300,000 graves still have legible inscriptions and that the majority will be unreadable within several years.
    "Usually we think that what has been written in the stone is very durable. But most of the gravestones which has been preserved are made of the sand stone. Inscriptions in this material are visible up to eighty, one hundred years. So right now they are starting to fade away and in several years will be impossible to read," genealogist Remigiusz Sosnowski said.
    As well as names and dates, some gravestones -- or 'matzevas' -- include information such as the deceased's occupation, place of birth of achievements.
    Much of the information is written in Yiddish using Hebrew letters, but given the frequent use of Polish, Russian and German words, researchers have developed a search system using transliteration on the site at cemetery.jewish.org.pl to make it easier to search.
    "Our writing down and publishing data on the internet allows linking. It allows people who have lived, for example, in California for two or three generations and even wouldn't know how to start searching... It allows [them] to travel to Poland with GPS coordinates, with a photo, and get the exact burial place of their forefather," Wrzosinski said.
    For him, the importance of the project came home when he found himself face-to-face with an ancestor's grave -- whose location he had previously not known -- during the logging process.
    "With time I realised that it promotes a very important idea. I felt it most when writing down the data of graves in Warsaw [where] I found big, beautiful grave. I started writing down its data when I realised that I'm writing down data which I know from my family papers, and that it was my direct forefather. And I felt something then… I have understood that it is worthwhile to allow other people to feel the same as I felt," Wrzosinski added.
    Before WWII, Poland has the largest Jewish community in the world. After the Holocaust, mass emigration and Communist rule, the Jewish population has sharply declined -- to the extent that Sosnowski believes that there are now no longer enough people to care for the graves.
    "It is pretty hard to observe a remnant of the formerly large community. Now we see, as shown in this cemetery, no one visits the graves. There are tens of thousands of graves here, including around five thousand with preserved inscriptions, and nobody comes here. Maybe there are single candles somewhere," he said.
    The database, which was honoured with the Stern Award by the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies recently, has also been praised and part-financed by the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
    "We hope that this project, the documentation of the cemeteries, will help people looking for graves of their forefathers, but also will help researchers and historians," museum chief specialist Krzysztof Bielawski said.
    But reaching the 100,000 inscription mark has become a symbolic time for change for genealogists from the foundation.
    Their past work has been done for a very low, symbolic cost, but after the rejection of their funding applications money has dwindled and they say that work can no longer be continued on such a large scale.
    Researchers have announced that they will continue their work, but on the smaller scale of a hobby or working on private genealogy searches.
    Support will also be provided for the development of local groups of enthusiasts, who will continue the Foundation's work in their own regions.
    But despite efforts and interest in local communities and for global visitors, the chances of recovery of all data on Poland's decimated Jewish population decreases with every year.
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