Itongadol.- Researchers compile an internationally-accessible database onthousands of Poland\’s Jewish graves as the sites themselves fall into disrepair
Hundreds of thousands of Jewish graves across Poland have been examined, logged and photographed in an ambitious but threatened online database.
"We write down everything. When we enter the cemetery, we mark down every stone with the name, and enter it into the database," genealogist Witold Wrzosinski told Reuters in Bialystok Jewish cemetery.
Before WWII, Poland had the largest Jewish community in the world. After the Holocaust, mass emigration and Communist rule, the Jewish population sharply declined – to the extent that there are now no longer enough people to care for the graves.
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"It is pretty hard to observe a remnant of the formerly large community. Now we see, as shown in this cemetery, no one visits the graves. There are tens of thousands of graves here, including around five thousand with preserved inscriptions, and nobody comes here. Maybe there are single candles somewhere," genealogist Remigiusz Sosnowski said.
The database, which was honoured with the Stern Award by the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies recently, has also been praised and part-financed by the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
"We hope that this project, the documentation of the cemeteries, will help people looking for graves of their forefathers, but also will help researchers and historians," museum chief specialist Krzysztof Bielawski said.
Genealogists working on the project estimate that only about 300,000 graves still have legible inscriptions and that the majority will be unreadable within several years.