Jewish Cemetery Rescued in Slovakia

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Bravo to the local Leustach civic association for organizing a clean up operation for the long-abandoned and overgrown 18th century Jewish cemetery in the village of Janikovce,  near Nitra in central Slovakia!

Here's a link to my  Jewish Heritage Europe report (with links to galleries of before and after pictures):

Dozens of volunteers, aged from 9 years old to over 70, took part, clearing brush, cutting down trees and removing waste from the cemetery, which for many years has been used as a dump site. They found discarded refrigerators, construction waste,  car parts, tires, construction material, plastic and asbestos tiles on the site. Many of the volunteers were pupils at a local middle school. [...]

The idea is to clear and clean up the cemetery and maintain it as a sort of park, but also to restore the memory of the Jewish community that had lived there for centuries until the Holocaust.