“Each report arriving at the Centre concerning cemeteries is individually treated and its details carefully checked to ascertain which tactic would be most effective in that particular case. With total commitment, we contact local governments directly and endeavour to reach a mutual agreement as soon as possible” the staff explain. It becomes almost routine practice in the Dept. for the Preservation of Cemeteries.

For instance, we overhear arrangements for a meeting scheduled between Rav Avrohom Yafe-Schlesinger, Rav of Machzikei Hadass in Geneva and Betzel HaChochma in Jerusalem, with the government of Byelorussia (White Russia). This follows an appeal for help regarding a Jewish cemetery in West Belarus where several hundred Jews were buried. Today it is so desolate, herds of cattle have made it their home! This is a particularly difficult campaign since there is a lack of Jewish presence locally, compelling them to make contact with the local government from the distance.

Yet there are situations where local contact with the municipal authorities has negative repercussions. When Rabbi A. Yafe-Schlesinger first contacted local German officials about the Krupenstadt cemetery in East Germany, after hearing first-hand testimony from a Holocaust survivor who lived in Krupenstadt and complained of the lack of care – the government replied that a local (non-Jewish) resident had been caring for the cemetery for years and the local council had recently fenced off the area of the cemetery.

Subsequently it was discovered the council had indeed preserved the vicinity but had fenced off only part of the cemetery area – it was still necessary to work for the preservation of the rest of it. The big problem there, the Preservation of Cemeteries Dept staff explain, is that the local officials are convinced they are in the right and do not understand what all the fuss is about.

Rabbi Avrohom Abba Turetsky of the Centre sent a long and detailed letter to Rabbi Yitzchok Ehrenberg, Rav of nearby Berlin, who expressed a strong desire to assist in this matter and offered to cooperate. At this stage the Dept for the Preservation of Cemeteries are searching for detailed maps of the area, in order to prove that not all Jewish graves in East Germany are currently marked and fenced correctly.