Following Lo Tishkach survey expeditions in several districts of Ukraine’s Zakarpattia (Transcarpathia) region, clean-up works were recently carried out at the Jewish cemetery in Rus’ki Komarivtsi with the help of a private American funder.
Located in the Uzzhorodskyi (Ungver) district, this historic Jewish burial site was established in the first half of the 19th century and the oldest gravestone at the site dates back to 1900. Prior to the Holocaust, about 30 Jewish families – mainly engaged in trade – lived in Rus’ki Komarivtsi. All of them were deported to labour and concentration camps in spring 1944. A handful of survivors returned to the village after the War but did not settle there permanently, meaning that the cemetery became the sole witness of former local Jewish life.
Today numerous gravestones remain at the site, but many of them suffered from severe vegetation overgrowth before the clean-up works were carried out in cooperation with the local municipality. A number of gravestone inscriptions were recorded by a group of Kiev-based students of Judaic Studies.
The Lo Tishkach Foundation is grateful for the support it received in order to help preserve local Jewish heritage.
