Jewish Cemeteries in Europe

Since 2020, Centropa is part of a consortium led by the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF) and involving the Foundation for Jewish Heritage, all working within the framework of a pilot Jewish cemeteries project co-funded by the European Commission. The project has as its central aim the surveying of vulnerable Jewish cemeteries in Central and Eastern Europe.  

Information on each cemetery site is being made available through an open source database, with each site containing an historical overview. In the course of 18 months, the project foresees 1,700 Jewish cemeteries being mapped and added to a growing database of sites, and these additions are located in seven countries, namely – Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.

The project collects GPS coordinates, information on ownership, and visual documentation. It also produces a taxonomy dividing cemeteries into categories according to the level of threat they face, and the urgency of protection.

There is also an important educational dimension recognising the particular circumstances of the Holocaust which explains why these sites are especially neglected and vulnerable. Data gathered from each cemetery will form the basis of awareness raising campaigns as well as valorisation projects.

Discover more about the project at https://www.esjf-surveys.org