UK: Skeletons Found in Norwich Well May be Those of Medieval Jews

Anti-Semitic cartoon of 1233 (during the reign of King Henry III) found on an Exchequer Roll. Photo: National Archives (UK)

UK: Skeletons Found in Norwich Well May be Those of Medieval Jews

A few years archaeologists excavated Jewish burials in Tarrega, Spain that showed evidence and violent death, and they put forward the hypothesis that the remains were of victims of a masscre of Jews in that Catalonian town, presumably an event from ca. 1391. Now new archeological evidence from Norwich, England points to the murder of Jews there. Skeletal remains of seventeen individuals found in a well in 2004 has been examined and researched and archaeologists and paleontologists now believe that these were Jewish victims - including many fomr the same family - of brutal murder.

According to a report published and broadcast by the BBC, "The most likely explanation is that those down the well were Jewish and were probably murdered or forced to commit suicide, according to scientists who used a combination of DNA analysis, carbon dating and bone chemical studies in their investigation. The skeletons date back to the 12th or 13th Centuries at a time when Jewish people were facing persecution throughout Europe....Seven skeletons were successfully tested and five of them had a DNA sequence suggesting they were likely to be members of a single Jewish family." Eleven of the bodies were of children from the ages of 2 to 15 with five of them below the age of five.

Dating of the deaths is not precise, especially since Norwich Jews were persecuted in many periods. They were accused in 1144 of the violent murder of the boy, William (of Norwich), the first recorded instance of the infamous "blood libel." Despite the rejection of the charges, the charge led to persecution and at least one community leader was killed. In 1190, at the time of the Third Crusade, many Jews were massacred in York and Norwich, where survivors purportedly took refuge in the city's castle. Still later persecutions including executions of Jews in Norwich in 1230. Jews were expelled from England in 1290.

Read full story here.

Latvia: New Report on Vidzeme Region Burial Grounds

Riga, Latvia. Memorial at Rumbula, the site of the massacre of tens of thousands of Latvian Jews. Photos: Samuel Gruber.

Latvia: New Report on Vidzeme Region Burial Grounds

Lo Tishkach has published its latest report about Jewish cemeteries in Europe. This report presents information about the location and condition of the Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust-era mass graves in the northern Latvian region of Vidzeme, including Latvia's capital Riga. The report outlines the current situation and location of eleven Jewish cemeteries and 28 mass grave sites. Truth by told, because these sites are near Riga, they are among the better documented and protected sites in the country. Still, they also represent some of the most important places, including many sites of mass murder.

Phil Carmel, director of Lo Tishkach writes: "Set up in 2006, the Lo Tishkach Foundation European Jewish Cemeteries and Holocaust Mass Graves Initiative aims to collate all known data on Europe’s Jewish cemeteries and mass graves, and to incorporate this vast source of information in an online database so that it is readily and easily accessible to everyone. This database now stands at close to 11,000 individual records of cemeteries and mass graves and when complete may well contain details on close to 20,000 sites. Much of the core information for this project was gathered from multiple sources but our records cannot be truly accurate and up-to-date without details of the situation on the ground...During the summer months of 2010, thirty-nine burial grounds in Vidzeme were located, visited, surveyed and photographed, creating a unique record of the region’s Jewish heritage. Moreover, the surveys took place within the context of broad educational seminars for local youth and students in Latvia, building skills in leadership and volunteerism and raising awareness of Jewish history, heritage and identity."

The report builds on a decade of earlier documentation work of researcher Meyer Meler which resulted in the publication Jewish Cemeteries in Latvia published in 2006 [ISBN 9984-19-904-5]. That work was sponsored by the Latvian Council of Jewish Communities, the Museum "Jews in Latvia," and the United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad.

The new report finds four cemeteries need in proper demarcation and maintenance, two other sites to be partially demarcated and protected, with a final fives sites lacking any appropriate form of identification and demarcation. Regarding mass grave sites, only four of them lack identification, and three sites require memorial markers that make mention of the Jewish victims buried there. The remaining 21 sites are appropriately marked.

The report is the second to be published of Latvian regions by Lo Tishkach and follows extensive surveys, local interviews and additional research undertaken by local students over the summer of 2010. A report covering Latvia’s Zemgale region was published last year where eighth cemeteries and three mass grave sites were identified as needing proper demarcation and signage, as well as removal of excess vegetation.

For a full list of surveyed cemeteries and information on contributing to cemetery care and repair see the Foundation's website, which also reports monthly on news affecting Jewish cemeteries.

Riga, Latvia. New Jewish Cemetery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2004.

Riga, Latvia. New Jewish Cemetery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2004.

Arkady Suharenko, Chairman of the Latvian Council of Jewish Communities, wrote in the introduction to the report that "The majority of the mass graves remained unmarked for the entire Soviet period, and only in a few places, the local authorities erected memorial signs, although these did not specify that those murdered at these sites were Holocaust victims. Jewish life in Latvia revived from virtual non-existence in the late 1980’s, with the liberalisation of the political system of the USSR.

Among the goals of re-established Jewish communities, one of the main ones was the preservation of Jewish heritage and memory. Over the last twenty years, extensive research has been undertaken and currently, most of the mass graves are surveyed and marked; the cemeteries have been surveyed, and at some sites, restoration work has been conducted.

The participation of the Latvian Jewish community in the Lo Tishkach project was important for us both in evaluating the current state of Jewish burial places and in making an in-depth research of some of these sites, as well as in enabling the young generation of Latvian Jews to be in touch with their roots and the Jewish history of the region. We hope that this project will contribute to the development and advance of the Latvian Jewish community, providing a new dimension of understanding the importance of preserving our cultural and spiritual heritage."

Riga, Latvia. New Jewish Cemetery. Detail of contemporary gravestone. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2004.

Romania: Iasi Holocaust Victims Reburied

Romania: Iasi Holocaust Victims Reburied

AFP reported on April 4, 2011 the following story of the reburial in the Jewish cemetery of Iasi, Romania, of the remains of about 40 Jewish Holocaust victims. The reburial is significant for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the victims were the first found in a mass grave in Romania since 1945 - despite the widespread belief that many such graves exist. Romania's long-standing official reluctance about pursuing Holocaust history is well known.

Elsewhere in Europe more concerted efforts are in progress to identify such graves - but these efforts, too, are often hampered by mixed local sensibilities about confronting the past and priorities about the future.

The second issue involves how to treat such graves when found. Many observant Jews prefer, and many insist, that graves be undisturbed, but marked and in some way consecrated and protected; in essence making every mass grave a Jewish cemetery. This follows Jewish law and tradition, and does not "disturb the dead."

On the other hand there are many who insist and require - for legal and historical reasons - that such graves when found be investigated, which usually mean the exhumation of the dead in order to try to describe the crime and identify the victims. Sometimes this is required to ascertain the fact that the victims were in fact Jews - or all Jews - something that in many cases, however, can never be fully known. A new field of forensic anthropology has developed in recent years specializing in such work - the result of horrific crimes in countries around the world. Following this scenario, Jewish communities usually prefer to see the exhumed remains reburied in Jewish cemeteries with other Jews in already consecrated ground, though for some Orthodox Jews the fear of interring a non-Jew in a Jewish cemetery is also a concern. Historical markers recounting the circumstances of their murders can still be placed at the mass grave site. The speed with which investigation and reburial is carried out can also become a contentious issue.

In Jewish history there are many precedents for the removal and reburial of human remains in order to protect them from destruction or to reunite them. Usually such removals and reburials follow prescribed procedures under rabbinic supervision, but truthfully, most of these are of fairly recent invention. How bodies were dealt with in the past in times of oppression and duress, and in times of communal recovery, is not fully known.

One thing that all sides agree on - is that graves of the dead need to marked in some way. Historians and archaeologists want the events of the past to be remembered. Observant Jews want to respect the dead, and also provided a warning to those (such as Cohanim) who cannot come in contact with the dead.

Dozens of Holocaust victims laid to rest in Romania

by: Isabelle Wesselingh

Rabbis from Britain and the United States bury on April 4, 2011 in the town of Iasi, 410 kms north of Bucharest, some 40 Jews killed during the Holocaust and found in November 2010 in a mass grave in the northeastern Romanian village of Popricani.

The remains of about 40 Jews killed during the Holocaust and found in a mass grave were laid to rest Monday in an emotion-filled ceremony in northeastern Romania. Five rabbis from Britain and the United States performed the funeral service under a grey and cloudy sky. Dressed in black, they carried the remains, unidentified and contained in paper bags and cardboard boxes, and put them into a single grave in the Jewish cemetery of Iasi, overlooking the city. "We have come here to help these people rest in peace. We believe it is God's will", British rabbi Meir Twersky, whose grand-parents are buried in Iasi cemetery, told AFP. "We are gathered here today to remember these men, women and children who were brutally murdered in a forest in 1941 (...) only because they were Jews", Israel's ambassador to Romania, Dan Ben-Eliezer, said during the official ceremony.

According to the Elie Wiesel National Institute, the victims were killed in the summer of 1941 at Popricani, close to Iasi, by the Romanian army, an ally of the Nazis during World War II. They were among more than 15,000 Jews killed in Iasi during pogroms in 1941. A Romanian historian, Adrian Cioflanca, found the site thanks to the testimonies of Romanians who had witnessed the killings. "We will continue the historical research in order to try to determine where the victims came from, whether it was from Iasi or the surrounding villages", the director of the Elie Wiesel Institute, Alexandru Florian, told AFP.

The exact number of victims, including women and children, has not been determined, but Cioflanca told AFP, "We found the skulls of at least 35 people but there were other body parts so we can talk about at least 40 people." The victims were buried just a few metres (yards) away from thousands more Jews killed during the pogroms. "I ask the forgiveness of the deceased for the suffering that has been brought to their holy bones", rabbi Meir Schlesinger said, referring to the belief that the remains should have been left where they were originally found. But Abraham Ghiltman, the president of the Iasi Jewish community, said it was a "relief" to see "those whose memory was forgotten" to be lying next to their fellow citizens in the Jewish cemetery. "We hope that the events we witnessed during the Holocaust will never happen again, neither in Romania nor in the rest of the world", he added.

According to an international commission of historians led by Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel, himself a Romanian-born Jew, between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were killed in territories run by the pro-Nazi Romanian regime during 1940-1944. The Popricani mass grave is the first to be discovered since 1945, when 311 corpses were exhumed from three locations in Stanca Roznovanu, close to Iasi, according to the Wiesel Institute.

Ukraine: Apartment Building to Rise on Kremenets Mass Grave Site?

Ukraine: Apartment Building to Rise on Kremenets Mass Grave Site?

Local sources in Kremenets, Ukraine have confirmed that the City has sold the site of a Holocaust mass grave to a developer who plans to construct an apartment building (or buildings) on that location. Local Jewish activists have obtained a three month injunction that has stopped activity at the site for now, but the injunction only has only 2 more months to run.

I do not yet know which of the several known mass grave sites in the vicinity of Kremenets this is. To my knowledge, only one of these sites has been adequately marked with a monument (see: http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/hme-ukraine.htm).

For several years there has been an international effort to protect and preserve the extensive Jewish cemetery of Kremenets and Jewish cemeteries in nearby towns.

To recevie updates on the situation contact Dr. Ron Doctor, Co-Coordinator, Kremenets Shtetl CO-OP/Jewish Records Indexing-Poland An activity of the Kremenets District Research Group (rddpdx@gmail.com).

Germany: New Dedications at Lieberose and Siegburg

Germany: New Dedications at Lieberose and Siegburg

(ISJM) Here are notices of two recent monument dedications in Germany that I missed. The information comes from German press accounts reports in the July Newsletter of the Lo Tishkach Foundation. - SDG

Memorial Stone Unveiled in Siegburg Jewish Cemetery

10 June 2009 - In the presence of Holocaust survivors, the mayor of the German city of Siegburg has unveiled a memorial stone in the local Jewish cemetery. The stone, featuring a plaque with the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is part of a project co-ordinated by the Cologne Archbishopric and local secondary schools. On the same day, a new oak tree was also planted in the cemetery.

Jewish Cemetery to be Consecrated at the Site of a Former Concentration Camp in Eastern Germany

9 June 2009 - On 16 June, Rabbi Menachem Halevi Klein of Frankfurt consecrated the site of a former concentration camp in the Brandenburg town of Lieberose. The area was identified as a mass grave in 1958, when the remains of twelve Holocaust victims were located and exhumed. Additional remains belonging to 577 victims were located and exhumed in 1971; they will be reburied during the consecration next week. Recent excavations aimed at finding an estimated 753 additional remains were unsuccessful, but the Central Council of Jews in Germany is demanding searches be resumed.

Established in 1943 as part of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the Lieberose camp was dissolved in February 1945 and 1342 individuals were shot to death. Read the original articles here and here.

Ukraine: Haaretz Article About Father Patrick Desbois's Search for Holocaust Mass Graves on the Occassion of his Visit with Pope to Israel

Ukraine: Haaretz Article About Father Patrick Desbois's Search for Holocaust Mass Graves on the Occassion of his Visit with Pope to Israel

On the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Israel last week, Israeli newspaper Haaretz has run a long story about French priest Patrick Desbois, who continues to make headlines internationally about his search for Jewish mass graves in Ukraine.

Father Desbois was in Pope Benedict's entourage, whether on his own initiative or as part of the Pope's public relations campaign is unclear. In any case, the continued exposure of Father Desbois allows the Vatican to show it really cares about the Holocaust. In fact, Desbois's work is a natural extension of Pope John Paul II's initiatives - in which he challenged Catholics in Poland and elsewhere to care for Jewish cemeteries and to acknowledge what has happened to the Jews who had formerly cared for them. Pope Benedict XVI has been less forthright in his addressing Holocaust history.

For many year's I have been ambivalent about Desbois's work. After being engaged for many years supervising the work of young Jewish Ukrainians documenting cemeteries and mass graves on a shoe-string budget in the 1990s, I am pleased that any work continues to discover the locations of mass graves, and to learn about the lives and fates of the murdered victims buried their, and to make efforts to protect and preserve these places. Still, I had hoped that such an effort would be a more formal one - involving both Ukrainian government leaders and agencies in partnership with Jewish communities. I wasn't looking for an Argentinean style "truth Commission," - but I did hope for more government recognition of the legitimacy of this history, and that it is part of the national story of Ukraine. Even more so, I hoped for belated recognition that the fate of the victims was due to their being Jews, and that their memory must also include some Jewish component.

I am afraid that much of Father Desbois's work - or at least the public interest in it, tends to more about him and his story (of a Catholic priest) - than about the stories of those whose grave he seeks. For many, his search has become as much about Catholics as about Jews. He sets a good example for Catholics, but I'm reminded how the public discussion of the Holocaust in places like Latvia often seeks to balance the noble actions of few hundred "Righteous Gentiles" (who are rightly recognized) with the fate of tens of thousands of Jews who met their deaths. The singular act of heroism is usually more memorable, or more easily tellable, than tales of horrific events - especially when horror was on such a large scale. In a similar way Desbois heroism - for what he is doing is heroic - risks overshadowing what he discovers. For in truth, for those knowledgeable about the Holocaust the story Desbois is revealing is not new; only the details are. But the for press, Desbois himself is now - and therefore noteworthy.

From the Haaretz article it seems that Father Desbois's efforts have taken a new direction - and have moved into a more systematic and institutional mode. Perhaps this will no longer be one man's quest - but something a society at large can embrace and even participate in. I hope that Father Desbois will make the effort to expand his efforts to include more Ukrainians and Ukrainian Jews. Only if this is done can his expeditions lay the ground work for on-site care of these graves, with more comprehensive planning for their marking, legal protection and long-term care. If only for the press coverage - this task cannot just be about Patrick Desbois - it must be about the victims of the crimes, and the those of the coming generations who must live near their remains.

French priest interviews Hitler's willing executioners in Ukraine

18/05/2009

By Cnaan Liphshiz

A horrific page of history unfolded last Monday in Ukraine. It concerned the gruesome and untold story of a spontaneous pogrom by local villagers against hundreds of Jews in a town south of Ternopil in 1941.

Not one, but five independent witnesses recounted the tale, recalling how they rushed to a German army camp, borrowed weapons and gunned down 500 Jews inside the town's Christian cemetery. One of them remembered decapitating bodies in front of the church.

The man heading the research that led to this discovery discussed it in Israel last week; Father Patrick Desbois was in Pope Benedict XVI's entourage.

Desbois is a French Roman Catholic priest. His team has been investigating mass executions in the former Soviet Union during the Holocaust for more than six years. In 2004, he founded Yahad-In Unum, a Paris-based organization devoted to Christian-Jewish understanding.

Oral testimonies from these events in Ukraine and Belarus are but a part of Desbois' research. Using metal detectors, his team uncovers German-made cartridges and bullets as well as victims' jewelry from killing pits. The findings are transferred to an archive in Paris, where the testimonies are translated.

Earlier this year, Desbois helped start the first Holocaust masters program at the Sorbonne, focusing on the extermination in the former Soviet Union.

To Desbois, there are two holocausts: a western one and an eastern one. The western holocaust was more organized, whereas the eastern one, "the one that happened away from Berlin," was chaotic, decentralized and undocumented.

"German officers wanted to appear efficient, so they documented one mass grave and declared the place judenfrei. In reality, the killings went on for years," he says. "The only way of documenting these [other] graves is asking the locals. Time's running out, and we're the only organization on the ground there."

Read the full story here