Project number: [JOWBR, BEL-03762]

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The NOVY SWIERZHEN/SHVERZHNA Cemetery in BELARUS

This is a small village on the Neman River, just across from a larger town, Stolpce/Shtaibts (the second names are Yiddish). The town is now in Belarus, but it was in Poland prior to WWII, albeit just at the border with the Soviet Union. Prior to WW I it was in the Russian Empire. Shverzhna had a large Jewish population as did the neighboring Shtaibts, which dwindled somewhat at the end of the 19th and in the early 20th century. The Germans killed most of the Jews there, but there were some particularly courageous partisans from those communities.

The cemetery in Shverzhna, which I visited in 2002, had been neglected since the Jewish population was annihalated, but apparently in the 1960's it had not been looted. That information I have from an email exchange with Vitalny Czarny, who had posted the family names which he copied from tombstones there on the net. He wrote me that he had taught there in that time span. When I visited there wasn't a single stone left standing and many of the graves had been obviously looted. There were deep pits where they had been and the few small mausolea left standing had been broken into.

There was a small cenotaph near the entrance to the cemetery, which was surrounded by a small wall, part of which had collapsed. The cenotaph, in Russian, apparently commemorates the mass murder of "Soviet Citizens", without mentioning that they were Jews. Recently I used Google Earth to see the site and someone had posted a picture of the entrance to the cemetery, which seems to have another monument. I couldn't make out details, but I have a hunch it may be in English or Hebrew. I certainly hope so.

Today Shverzhna is a Kolkhoz, a kind of collective farm village. It seems a relatively poor place. The sole paved road is the old highway that runs the length of the town. It's synagogue is just a shell of a 2-story brick structure. A foundation is all that remains of what was probably a "heder" or study house on the main street. There are, so far as I understand, no Jews living there. Zalman Shazar was born there and grew up in neighboring Shtaibts. There is a Yizkor book on both these communities.

Eliot Braun
October 2011

Click here for:

Overview #1 of cemetery

Overview #2 of cemetery

Overview #3 of cemetery

Overview #4 of cemetery

Overview #5 of cemetery