The cemetery is a large, untended area. Locals said that the last Jew in the town died in 2014. Because she had been married to a Christian, she was buried in the Christian cemetery.
The Christian cemetery that one has to pass by in order to get to the Jewish area remains in use. Many graves had fresh flowers or showed other signs of being visited.
The area of the Jewish cemetery was overgrown with high weeds and brush. Almost all graves showed signs that they had not been visited in many years. Except for a very small area, maybe 100 feet by 100 feet, the graves had not been touched. In the “active” area, many graves were surrounded by their own fences. Some had a small bench inside the fence. A number of graves in this area had pictures of the deceased on them. In each case, I tried to take a separate photo of the picture.
Outside this “active” area, there was huge brush, trees and many weeds. We had to hack through the weeds and sometimes saw limbs off of the trees or bushes to get access to the gravesites. At the far west side of the cemetery, there appears to have once been a wall or fence separating the cemetery from what is now the highway. A ditch runs along the west side of the location of the former wall. In those areas, the ground has risen against the grave markers by as much as 12 inches. I know this because we had to dig down around one marker in order to read what was written and photograph the writing.
The graves were of several types: A pentagonal shaped stele that ran about two and half feet tall and made of cement; a “tree of life” that appeared to be carved from granite; the semicircle on a square; granite steles, square blocks, and the occasional odd shaped marker that looks like a triangle was set on top of another triangle whose tip had been cut off to make a flat surface.
Not only has the cemetery not been kept up, but it has been vandalized. It is hard to tell what caused a lot of the damage, though. A number of markers that should have been upright were on their sides on the ground. This was the status of most of the “tree of life” markers. Some other markers had the writing worn off. Others, which had once had metal plates (presumably painted with information about the deceased, based upon the evidence of the few remaining), were now missing the plates, or they were rusted, faded, and in several cases, had bullet holes through them. It could be damage from WWII or it could just be plain old mischievous kids. In some areas people had dumped trash.
Could the cemetery be restored? It would take a lot. First, you would need a large number of volunteers to cut down the heavy wood growth there (and haul it away). Then, you would have to week the place. This would not be hard, but would take a long time or a number of volunteers. Some of the stones which had been knocked over could be put back in place, but there would still be quite a few upon which there are no remaining identifying marks.
Regarding the photographs. I tried to get the “whole stone” in as many cases as possible. I also tried to add close-ups on the writing or what were interesting details, such as photographs.
In some cases, especially which those markers made of cement, the writing had been eroded. It had also been damaged on some of the granite markers. If there was any sort of writing, I took a photo. In the case of the rusted or faded plates, working with Photoshop or other tools that can heighten the contrast may make the writing readable. On the pentagonal steles, I tried to take pictures of all sides. I tried to get angles so that the sun would cause enough of a shadow to make the writing legible.
Satellite view
