Disconcerting reports have recently come in from Jews who
visited Jewish sites which had once been thriving Torah
centers in Europe, but are now in ruins. Visitors who
recently came from Kelm and Kovna in Lithuania were shocked
by the systematic destruction and vandalism in the ancient
cemeteries. In some cases, the dead were robbed of their gold
teeth.
In light of the these developments, a special delegate of the
descendants and family members of those buried in those
cemeteries recently went to Kelm and Kovna to try and rectify
the situation.
Kelm, the famous city of the Alter and the Talmud Torah of
Kelm, the city where the great mussar movement
flourished and great Torah luminaries lived, is now without a
single resident Jew. The last Jew to have lived in Kelm, Dr.
Meir, a person of immense spiritual stature who made great
efforts to preserve the cemetery, died of a sudden heart
attack two years ago. Since his death, there is no local
person to attend to the cemetery and the results are
painfully obvious.
In the ancient cemetery, tombstones were desecrated in a
disgraceful manner. Great Torah luminaries such as the Alter
of Kelm and his family are buried in this cemetery. The
menacing signs of vandalism are already evident: broken
tombstones and tombstones which have been sprayed with
whitewash. The feeling is that if no if steps are taken
immediately, the cemetery will be in grave danger.
In Kovna the situation is also serious. The city was known
primarily for the Knesses Yisroel yeshiva of Slobodke, the
yeshiva which followed the educational approach of the Alter
of Slobodke and which later continued the Alter's
derech in Hevron and then in Yerushalayim after the
massacres of 5689-1929. In days gone by the yeshiva was the
pride of Kovna and pictures of the students of the yeshiva
and its head were placed in the main synagogue, beside the
pictures of Kovna's esteemed rabbonim, HaRav Yitzchok
Elchonon Spector and HaRav Dovber Kahane-Shapira, author of
Dvar Avrohom.
In Kovna's old cemetery, appalling negligence prevails. There
are the common signs of vandalism, such as shattered
tombstones with the pieces scattered all over the area. In
this cemetery are the graves of the rabbonim of Kovna from
the past few hundred years.
The grave of HaRav Yitzchok Elchonon is one of the few that
was saved when it was transferred to the new cemetery in
Aliscot, which is better maintained. The grave of the Dvar
Avrohom, who was niftar in the Kovna ghetto during the
Holocaust, was also transferred there, and placed near the
grave of HaRav Boruch Horowitz of Aliscot, who was also a
ram in the Slobodke yeshiva.
However many marbitzei Torah are still buried in the
ancient cemetery, where a very lamentable situation exists.
HaRav Yitzchok Elchonon was niftar more than 120 years
ago and buried in the old cemetery, but people were buried in
that cemetery more than 200 years ago. In this cemetery there
were three rows of graves of the rabbonim of Kovna for many
generations. Among the gedolim of Kovna buried there
were known to be the father of the Bais Halevi, HaRav
Yitzchok Zeev, and his father, HaRav Yosef Soloveitchik (who
was the son-in-law of Rabbenu Chaim of Volozhin), both of
whom served as rav and av beis din of Kovna.
HaRav Chaim Telzer, HaRav Leib Kobner, HaRav Yosef Cohen (the
grandfather of HaRav Aharon Cohen, the rosh yeshiva of
the Chevron yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel), as well as the
brothers, HaRav Yaakov Lifschitz and HaRav Yehuda Lifschitz,
and scores of other gedolei Torah, rabbonim and
talmidei chachomim are also buried there. The grave of
HaRav Chaim Telzer was located and his tombstone was found
nearby on the ground. The grave of HaRav Yosef Cohen was
famous because he promised that he would intercede in Heaven
on behalf of any shomer Torah who visited his
grave.
It was found that for some young Lithuanians the destruction
of tombstones had become something of a hobby. The cemetery,
which was once far from the city, has become closer to homes
due to the expansion of the city. At one point, Kovna's
residents began to use the cemetery as a shortcut between the
neighborhoods that bordered it. The pedestrian traffic made
the cemetery familiar and turned it into a sort of park in
which dogs roam and children play among the tombstones.
Recently, a local developer was offered the chance to
purchase part of the cemetery area, in order to build a
parking lot on it. It was claimed that the parking lot would
be built on an area that was never used for burials.
The Kovna dead have been horribly violated for very mercenary
reasons. Using metal detectors, grave robbers locate precious
metals buried in the graves. When they get a sign of some
metal they dig up the grave, and extract the gold teeth or
other precious metals buried with the deceased. A local paper
reported extensively on the trial held for grave robbers
caught red-handed while perpetrating their disgraceful
work.
This is apparently why the local government felt
uncomfortable and is trying to correct, at least in part, the
negative impression created by the publicity generated by the
affair. The authorities have agreed to comply, to some
extent, with the demands made of them. If the Jewish
community raises the funds to fence off the area and to clean
up the graves, it appears likely that the government will
agree to post permanent guards on the site.
A special emissary, R' Gedaliah Olstein, a building engineer
who lives in Yerushalayim, was shocked by what he saw when he
first arrived. He met with the representatives of the local
government and demanded that the cemetery be shown the
respect it deserves and that it be guarded. The authorities
told him that if a way could be found to renovate the
destroyed tombstones and to erect a fence around the
cemetery, the local authorities would make a serious effort
to guard it properly. The officials claimed they lacked the
funds to do anything more than that.
A terrible spiritual neglect also prevails in those cities
and towns which once were vibrant Torah centers and where
there are still a few survivors. Of the scores of synagogues
that once dotted Kovna, only one functions at all and that on
a part-time and very unsettled basis. The Jews who remain in
those places cry out for spiritual help, siddurim,
seforim and a baal korei, so that they can live as
Jews. They asked for a rav and guide for the Jewish youth,
who will be able deliver shiurim to the older Jews who
still recall a few Jewish concepts and are eager to learn
more about Yiddishkeit.
R' Gedaliah Olstein managed to obtain a unique map which
shows all of cemeteries in the Jewish towns of the area, as
well as the mass graves of the kedoshim massacred by
the Nazis. This map was laboriously prepared over many years
by the aforementioned Dr. Meir of Kelm, who went from city to
city gathering testimony and amassing every bit of
information about the cemeteries and graves of the
kedoshim throughout Lithuania.
According to the rabbonim and activists involved in the
issue, the lack of awareness and attention to the future of
the cemeteries on the part of the worldwide Jewish community
enables the non-Jews and the antisemites to do whatever they
please on those sites. It is difficult to understand why
there is such a general lack of concern about the sorry
situation which grows worse from day to day, and has lately
increased even more as the local residents see the
indifference of the Jewish community to what is taking place
on the scene.
All those who visited the cemeteries in East Europe share the
feeling that the last living Jews are disappearing from these
areas. Seeing the few vestiges who have remained in the
former Torah centers of Europe has caused the activists
involved in the rescue of destroyed Lithuanian Jewry to
wonder who will remain there in a few more years. Today in
every city there are one or two families and they keep the
keys of the cemeteries and take visitors to the Torah sites
and to the buildings where the where the yeshivos and the
apartments of the marbitzei haTorah were. Only a very
few Jews remain.
The activists wonder what will happen after they too
disappear? They ask: Aren't all of us responsible for the
fate of both the living and the dead, especially in light of
the shocking trend of the desecration of graves?
