BRUSH CLEARING AT ROHATYN’S OLD JEWISH CEMETERY
The historic Jewish cemetery just southeast of Rohatyn’s city center dates from the 17th century, and was in continuous use for 300 years; it was closed for over-crowding in the interwar period of the 20th century, when the new Jewish cemetery north of town was opened.
Jedna z nielicznych zachowanych macew. Fot. The Matzevah Foundation
As seen in images from WWI and in the 1930s, the cemetery was filled with closely-spaced tall matzevot. During the German occupation in WWII, nearly every gravestone in the old cemetery was broken and stolen for use as building material in the foundations of roads and buildings, a common Nazi practice in eastern Galicia. Since the war, with no surviving Jewish community, the cemetery has seen few visitors, and little attention.
For the past several years, nature has been triumphant and the old cemetery had become covered with tough wild grasses, and with thickets of thorny shrubs, vines, a variety of saplings, and other plants pushing up through the grass.
Fot. Rohatyn Jewish Heritage