The Lo Tishkach Foundation has recently completed its first report into the state of Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust mass grave sites in Latvia. The report covers 26 sites in the Zemgale region in the southern part of the country straddling Latvia’s border with Lithuania.
Of the sites surveyed, eleven Jewish cemeteries and Jewish sections of municipal cemeteries and fifteen mass graves, 31% are considered by Lo Tishkach to be seriously threatened and 23% to be threatened; 46% of the sites are regarded as not being under threat.
Only two of the Jewish cemeteries surveyed during this project were found to be appropriately demarcated/protected, identified and maintained. The three sites graded ‘threatened’ require demarcation and regular maintenance, in particular clearance of vegetation. Of the six cemeteries graded ‘seriously threatened’, all sites require demarcation and proper identification. There is no remaining visible trace of the cemetery at four sites.
Two of the cemetery sites surveyed were found to be actively in use as Jewish cemeteries or Jewish sections of municipal cemeteries. A further five sites are unprotected Jewish cemetery sites not used for any other purpose. Three sites were found to be used for recreational purposes and one site for residential purposes.
Sixty-six per cent of the mass grave sites surveyed during this project were demarcated and properly identified. However, at three sites, the monuments marking the graves do not appropriately identify the sites as Jewish mass graves. The remaining two mass graves were found to be unidentified, unprotected and unmaintained.
The sites of Jaunjelgava Old Jewish Cemetery and Jelgava Cholera Cemetery are currently undergoing further research. Both these sites were destroyed before or during the Second World War. The report will be available online shortly.
Surveys at these sites were undertaken in the summer of 2010 as part of Lo Tishkach’s education projects by students and young people from the Jewish communities of Latvia with support from the Genesis Philanthropy Group and with the continued support of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Further reports on all regions of Latvia are scheduled for publication by Lo Tishkach during the course of 2011.
