Bringing New Life To An Old Cemetery

Never forget: A memorial now stands at the site of a restored Jewish cemetery in Hlucin. Pieces of desecrated tombstones surround a grassy mound. Courtesy Josh Lewittes

Never forget: A memorial now stands at the site of a restored Jewish cemetery in Hlucin. Pieces of desecrated tombstones surround a grassy mound. Courtesy Josh Lewittes

by Josh Lewittes

In the center of a tiny Jewish cemetery in the town of Hlucin, Czech Republic, is a mound of grass. Fragments of Jewish gravestones are inlaid alongside the mound. Rows of 62 tombstones, dated from 1814 to 1943, line the other end of the site with grass growing all around and two beautiful old trees on the side. This old looking cemetery is actually a modern reminder of the ugly atrocities perpetrated against the Jews by the Nazis 65 years ago. In fact, no Jews are buried anymore on this hallowed ground which was desecrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust and later by the Russians.

The memorial mound is part of an ongoing project to return dignity to the Hlucin Jewish Cemetery which reopened this spring. A plaque at the site reads in Czech, “Jewish cemetery in Hlucin, founded 1814, destroyed by Nazis 1943, partially restored 2008.” The cemetery will only be used as a memorial and not as a working cemetery.

Last March I wrote an article in Fresh Ink (“Saving A Place That Time Forgot”) describing how the Nazis senselessly demolished the tombstones and used the broken pieces to dam a local brook. The story grew out of my journey in the summer of 2007 to the Czech Republic where my New York ice hockey coach, a native of nearby Ostrava, arranged for me and my brother to play hockey with an elite Czech team.

During my stay in Ostrava, I became interested in what had happened to the Jewish community there. I spent hours with my brother in the dried up brook unearthing muddy pieces of Hebrew-inscribed gravestones that were discovered a few months before by Czech workmen in the nearby town of Hlucin, only a couple of miles from Ostrava.

When I returned home that summer I felt compelled to improve the lives of the area’s aging Holocaust survivors and to rebuild the desecrated Jewish cemetery. The best assist this hockey player ever received was from Jaroslav Klenosvsky, a scholar and author of dozens of books on Czech Jewry.
Klenovsky not only selflessly removed the broken gravestones from the brook and catalogued each and every fragment, but he also spearheaded the cemetery’s restoration including designing the site and writing the memorial plaque’s inscription.

Although Klenovsky is not Jewish, he has devoted his professional career to the protection and preservation of Jewish sites that were razed by the Nazis in the Czech Republic. I have never met Klenovsky, but I have corresponded with him through the JCC of Ostrava.

Raising money for the cemetery’s restoration required another hockey fundamental — teamwork. I wrote letters to Jewish charities, friends and family members. The New York Ice Cats raised money and Lisa Feder of the Czech Heritage Action Initiative helped me create a website (www.remember-ostrava.org) detailing the plight of the Jews of Ostrava and the Hlucin cemetery.

The Joint Distribution Committee paid a portion of the $14,000 for the cemetery’s restoration. One man from Maryland who read my article in Fresh Ink insisted I not send him a thank you note. Excluding the JDC contribution, I’ve raised $3,000.

This summer members of the New York Ice Cats will travel to Ostrava to scrimmage against young Czech players and visit the restored Hlucin cemetery. There’s no longer a team in my age bracket, but a younger group following Jewish tradition will place stones on the gravestones and say kaddish for those we never met but who — thanks to the hard work of Klenovsky and the generosity of so many agencies and individuals — will now never be forgotten.

Joshua Lewittes is a junior at Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan.

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Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization