Burial Sites Clearing Season Ends for 2024

The south mass grave site a few weeks ago. Photo © RJH.

With the cooler temperatures and fewer hours of sunshine in western Ukraine now, the seasonal clearing of wild vegetation at the four Jewish burial sites in Rohatyn has now come to an end. When Marla, Wito, and I visited the city to review the Jewish sites during the first week of this month, already the grasses which grow so swiftly during late spring, summer, and early autumn were thinning and slowing.

Ця стаття також доступна українською.

The north mass grave site earlier this month. Photo © RJH.

This was the third consecutive year during which the clearing work was completely managed and documented for us on behalf of Jewish descendants by two men who live and work in Rohatyn; as always, we are pleased with this year’s work and the results. Ihor Zalypko, a vodokanal engineer who lives just up the road from the old Jewish cemetery, again made three complete clearings of wild grass and shrubs there through the growing season; now the grass will go dormant through winter. Ihor’s regular work at the site means that the old cemetery remained visibly cared for and accessible to visitors throughout the year, and will continue in good condition through winter.

Vasyl and Wito at the new cemetery a few weeks ago. Photo © RJH.

Vasyl Yurkiv, a bicycle mechanic who lives across a road from the new Jewish cemetery, again made four complete clearings this season and performed light maintenance of the grounds including cutting dead branches from the tall trees at the left-center of the site. Vasyl also continues to flatten molehills on the cemetery, a task which requires constant vigilance both to reduce trip hazards and to simplify the clearing work.

With Ihor at the north mass grave site this month. Photo © RJH.

At the two wartime Jewish mass grave sites, Ihor Zalypko continued his maintenance work now spanning several years since the retirement of Mykhailo Vorobets z”l. As every year, this year he cut wild grass and weeds (including the dangerously poisonous Sosnowsky’s hogweed) and planted flowering shrubs at both sites, making both memorials presentable and clean for visitors. He also performed light maintenance on the memorial monuments and trimmed heavy tree branches hanging over the new information sign at the south mass grave.

With Marla and Wito in the old cemetery this month. Photo © RJH.

As we have reported before, the ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine makes almost all of our work in Rohatyn more difficult, so we are grateful that Ihor and Vasyl have continued to attend to the care of the burial sites and to manage site issues as they arise without significant involvement from us. When we met with them a few weeks ago, both men indicated their willingness to continue the work in 2025, and each had some suggestions of additional maintenance tasks they could do to further stabilize the sites. News reports in Ukraine frequently describe attacks on cultural heritage sites of all kinds here, so it remains essential that we and others work to defend and preserve those sites so that others may visit them and embrace them as elements of the region’s multicultural history.