Rabbi Pinchas Teitz, an Orthodox leader, said today he had been informed that the Soviet Lithuanian Government had announced it will convert the ghetto cemetery in Kaunas into an industrial area. The Jewish community of Kaunas was given until September 15 to transfer the remains from the cemetery which has not been used since 1945.
The cemetery was established during the Nazi occupation of Kaunas when the Nazis refused to let the Jews out of the ghetto area to bury their dead in the old Jewish cemetery. Thousands of Jews who perished in Kaunas during the Nazi occupation were buried in the ghetto cemetery. There are less than a thousand Jews remaining in Kaunas today.
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