Support grows for Belarus Jewish headstone memorial

There is growing support for the idea of a memorial comprising Jewish headstones in Belarus after they were discovered to have been used to construct roads and buildings in a town on the border with Poland.

Residents of Brest say over 1,500 stones have so far been unearthed, with hundreds revealed in May when diggers moved in to clear a site for a new supermarket.

The UK-based charity The Together Plan, which is working with US groups to campaign for a fitting memorial, said the headstones were used during Soviet times, when Jews were not allowed to practice their religion.

“It was bizarre – they were everywhere,” said the charity’s Debra Brunner. “The Soviets desecrated the whole cemetery and removed every single gravestone.”

She said people had used them in foundations of their houses, as grindstones and they bolstered roads, without knowing what they were. It was only in later years that people in the town grew suspicious that they were actually religious artefacts.