Continuing our volunteer work to gain skills and knowledge in cemetery care, this week Marla and I participated in a Jewish cemetery clearing and cleaning project in Poland conducted by The Matzevah Foundation; although we have helped in several cemetery projects in the past, this was an opportunity to learn about the tools and methods used in larger-scale grounds work,…
We learned this morning that the City of Rohatyn has already made progress on their plans for a new local history museum, which they told us about in our meeting with them in May. According to a 09Jun2016 report in the regional news outlet Vikna (Windows), the new site will be at a complex of buildings south of the city…
It had been 8 months since our last visit. The goals for this trip were: to meet Rohatyn’s newly-elected mayor; to learn from Mikhailo Vorobets if any new Jewish headstones had been found; and to visit the Rohatyn public library to see what new books they purchased from our donation on behalf Jewish descendants of Rohatyn. After picking up Mr.…
Every trip to Rohatyn includes a review of the Jewish Headstone Recovery Project, and like always, today some new discoveries were made. This morning we visited several matzevot recovery sites in town with Mr. Vorobets as usual, this time also with long-time project supporter Tom Traber of California; we also visited the Rohatyn old Jewish cemetery (where the stones are…
We have new information and have begun new activity on the Mass Grave Memorials Rehabilitation Project. As we have outlined on the project page, the memorials in Rohatyn are in good condition; to date we have only needed to do some small concrete repairs to the the Soviet-era monument at the southern grave area. However, the actual boundaries of the…
As we reported several weeks ago, I was invited to participate in a cemetery marker restoration workshop organized by Stowarzyszenie Magurycz (Magurycz Association) in the south of Poland; it would be a chance for us to learn from their 30 years of experience in the care of stone cemetery markers and other monuments. I just got back from three days…
Last night Marla and I met with two of the principals of Stowarzyszenie Magurycz (Magurycz Association), a Polish non-profit which organizes and conducts annual cemetery and headstone repair workshops in Poland and around Central Europe. The brothers Szymon Modrzejewski and Filip Modrzejewski have been been doing this work for 30 years (yes, they started when they were teenagers). We met…
We got word this evening from Alex Denysenko that he had visited Rohatyn earlier today, and had met with Mikhailo Vorobets to review several of the city’s historical sites for research. During the visit, Mr. Vorobets informed Alex that two Jewish headstone pieces had been newly discovered and reported by residents near the St. George church and the Rohatyn club…
Greetings Rohatyners from beautiful Lviv. Jay and I were in Rohatyn yesterday, accompanied as usual by Alex Denysenko and his driver Vitaly. It was a typically intense day which included planned meetings with locals and unplanned issues brought to our attention by local retired school teacher and our long-standing ally Mr. Vorobets. The latter issues involved recovery of a new…
Last November, accompanied by Sofia Dyak, Andrij Bojarov, and Tarik Cyril Amar, Jay and I visited Rohatyn with guide and friend Alex Den (Alex Denysenko), and Rabbi Kolesnik of nearby Ivano-Frankivsk. One purpose of the visit was to examine the recent recovery of dozens of Jewish headstones from a courtyard in Rohatyn that during the War was used as a…