The Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry learned today that another Jewish cemetery in the Soviet Union has been destroyed, Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference executive director, said that the cemetery in Sarin in the Ukraine has been turned into a garbage dump with few gravestones still standing. Earlier a road had been paved through the cemetery for use by a nearby military installation, The cemetery had been in relatively good condition until a year ago.
Hoenlein also reported that nearby to the cemetery are three mass graves where 12,000 Sarini Jews, murdered by the Nazis, are buried. The fences put around the graves after World War II have been removed and the only marker, a large gravestone in the center grave, has been destroyed.
Hoenlein said that “these government authorized acts are another step in the campaign to eradicate any vestige of Jewish identity, any link to the past–even the martyrdom of those who perished at the hands of the Nazis,” Efforts are underway to secure protection of these cemeteries, “as a matter of human decency we must maintain this elemental respect for the dead.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
