All Gravestones Removed from Jewish Cemetery in Minsk. Nothing in the Landscape Will Now Remind That People Are Buried Here
Jewish organizations have moved all preserved matzevot from the Jewish Memorial Park on Sukhaya Street to the main synagogue in another part of Minsk. The organizers plan to create a lapidarium from the gravestones. Many, however, consider the initiative ill-advised.
As reported by the Jewish sports organization "Maccabi Bay," on June 23 and 24, about 250 stone gravestones were removed from the territory of the former Jewish cemetery and taken to the synagogue on Daumana Street.
The initiators of the transfer explained that in the park, the monuments lay "without care, without attention, and without names." Now, the collected stones are planned to be cleaned, cataloged, and used to create a memorial-lapidarium. The project is being implemented by the Judeo Religious Association.
Nothing is said about returning the gravestones to their historical place after cleaning. From this, it can be concluded that the new lapidarium is intended specifically to be near the synagogue, located far from the historical necropolis.
The cemetery on Sukhaya Street was founded in 1868. In the 1970s, the necropolis was closed — the Soviets systematically got rid of old cemeteries, especially Jewish ones, and in the 1990s, the territory was completely leveled. Today, the Jewish Memorial Park is located on this site. Until recently, the matzevot were gathered here together, visually complementing other objects of the complex and reminding of what lies buried beneath people's feet.
Among them are 10 large obelisks with inscriptions in German and Belarusian from Bremen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne, and other cities. They commemorate the European Jews who were deported to the Minsk "Sonderghetto" in 1941-1942 and shot here. Also nearby is the "Broken Hearth" monument, opened in memory of 5000 ghetto prisoners, who were killed directly on the cemetery grounds.
As the Telegram channel "Spadchyna" (Heritage) noted, the decision to remove the gravestones to the synagogue on Daumana Street deprives the historical site on Sukhaya Street of the last visual traces of the cemetery's presence. Such a decision would only be justified if there was dense development on the territory or if the monuments were threatened with physical destruction. However, today the cemetery territory has the status of a Jewish Memorial Park, and there is no direct threat to the gravestones.
Old gravestones in the Jewish Memorial Park. In the background, the "Broken Hearth" memorial. Photo: Google Maps
Researchers emphasize that being "without care" is the natural state of gravestones in old cemeteries. As an example, one can cite Minsk's Kalvaryja, where no one uproots overgrown monuments from the ground to create artificial order.
The capital already has similar experience with necropolises destroyed during Soviet times. For example, collected historical gravestones form a lapidarium at the former Tatar Cemetery.
However, there these stones were placed near the new mosque directly on the historical burial territory. In the case of the matzevot, they were physically separated from the actual cemetery site.
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