As part of our major expansion into cemetery surveys in Ukraine, Lo Tishkach will launch surveys across three new Ukrainian regions (or ‘oblasts’) in 2012, thus covering almost three quarters of the country’s Jewish burial sites.
During the spring and summer months, all Jewish cemetery and mass grave sites located in the Poltava Oblast will be surveyed in cooperation with the Kiev-based Centre for jewish Education in Ukraine.
At least 28 Jewish cemeteries and mass grave sites are believed to be located in the Poltava region, which is located to the south-east of the capital Kyiv. Some areas require further research to ascertain the exact number, especially of Holocaust mass graves.
According to the 1897 Russian census, nine cities in what is present-day Poltava Oblast had more than 1,000 Jewish inhabitants at the time. Yiddish was the second language in the region and was spoken by about 110,000 individuals.
Results of the survey project in Poltava will be uploaded to the Lo Tishkach database and also released in a separate survey report.
Having already surveyed the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv and Odessa Oblasts, these new Lo Tishkach surveys in Poltava will complete surveys across this vast central region of the country.
