The Fate of Jewish Cemeteries in the Postwar USSR

The history of Jewish burial practices and funerary traditions dates back to ancient times. The first references to them can already be found in the Torah: the Book of Genesis describes how Isaac asks to be buried in the tomb of his fathers, establishes the seven-day mourning period, and tells of the first gravestone being placed on Rachel’s grave near Beit Lehem, or Bethlehem. It is from this episode that the tradition of pilgrimage to burial sites begins.

Jewish cemeteries, known in Hebrew as beit almin (“house of eternity”), beit chaim (“house of life”), or beit kvarot (“house of graves”), have always played a special role in communal life. Their organisation was strictly regulated by the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch, the authoritative code of Jewish law. Cemetery land was considered sacred, and all work on it was permitted only by hand.

Of particular interest are the gravestones — matzevot — which, according to tradition, were installed about twelve months after burial. They could be made from natural materials such as stone or wood, as well as from metal, and most often had a rectangular shape.

According to Jewish law, the remains of the deceased must remain forever in the place of their original burial. Exceptions were made only for transferring remains to Eretz Israel, to a family grave, from a non-Jewish cemetery, or in cases where graves were threatened with desecration or natural destruction.

In the Soviet period, the fate of Jewish cemeteries was especially tragic. Formally, under a decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR dated 7 December 1918, supervision, protection, and maintenance of cemeteries were entrusted to municipal services in cities and to village councils in rural areas. In the postwar years, however, numerous complaints and petitions submitted to the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults testified to the extremely poor state of cemetery management.

The geography of destruction was extensive. In Ulyanovsk Oblast, all Jewish cemeteries were in an exceptionally neglected state, with livestock grazing on them. In Kyiv, the old Jewish cemetery was used for military training exercises; its stone fence was dismantled by local residents for building materials, and a road was laid through the cemetery grounds.

In Ternopil Oblast, the cemeteries in Chortkiv, Zbarazh, Terebovlia, Ternopil, Kremenets, and the village of Bilobozhnytsia were overgrown with weeds; monuments and gravestones had been destroyed; stone fences were dismantled by the local population, while wooden fences had already been completely taken apart. Cattle, sheep, and goats grazed freely on these grounds.

Especially alarming was the use made of cemetery property. In Uman, gravestones were used to build a stone crusher and a storage facility. In Saratov, a telling incident occurred when local authorities attempted to move a monument from the grave of victims of the 1905 Jewish pogrom to the grave of Ivan Slonov, People’s Artist of the USSR. Only broad public attention forced them to return the monument to its original place.

In some cities, Jewish cemeteries were put to especially cynical use. In Cherkasy, a Jewish cemetery was turned into a rubbish dump and a burial ground for livestock; the poorly buried animal carcasses attracted packs of dogs. In Lubny, part of the cemetery was ploughed up for vegetable gardens.

The situation with mass burial sites of Holocaust victims deserves separate attention. The territory of Babyn Yar in Kyiv, where mass shootings had taken place, was not protected and was used as a sand quarry. Autumn rains washed away the slopes, exposing the remains of the dead. Moreover, the site was dug up by criminal elements searching for valuables.

In some cases, religious communities took responsibility for caring for cemeteries themselves. In Sukhy Yar in Uman, where thousands had been shot, the mass grave was restored solely on the initiative and at the expense of the local Jewish community. The community also dealt with installing a monument, preparing a design and cost estimate, and collecting funds and materials, while the city council completely removed itself from addressing these issues.

It is telling that the Soviet authorities often began to show interest in the problems of destroyed cemeteries not out of concern for preserving cultural heritage or respecting the memory of the dead, but out of fear that the influence of the synagogue over Soviet citizens might grow. This cynical position is vividly reflected in a memorandum by Poshekhonov, legal adviser to the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

With obvious disapproval, he described cases in which Jewish communities took responsibility for cemetery care: in Lubny, the Jewish cemetery with all its buildings was transferred to “a certain citizen Grinberg”; in Irkutsk, the community appointed Bronner and Khaskin, who “monopolistically performed all religious rites at the cemetery”; and the Vostryakovskoye Cemetery in Moscow was administered by the office of the Moscow Choral Synagogue.

In his effort to find faults in the work of religious organisations, Poshekhonov argued that transferring cemeteries to their control supposedly led to new problems: communities set inflated burial fees and demanded “voluntary offerings.” At the same time, he completely ignored the fact that it was precisely the inaction of state bodies that forced communities to take responsibility for cemeteries and bear the related costs.

This approach clearly demonstrates the hypocrisy of the authorities: first allowing cemeteries to fall into ruin, and then criticising those who tried to preserve them.

Freddy Rotman