19 March 2024, Tuesday, 12:36
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Locals Picnic At Jewish Cemetery In Shklou

Locals Picnic At Jewish Cemetery In Shklou

The ancient Jewish cemetery in Shklou, the Lukashenka's homeland, is gradually turning into a place for open-air parties.

If one visits this place on the outskirts of the city, one will see not only gravestones. Trees and bushes cover the ancient part of the cemetery. If you enter the cemetery from the former western gate and move forward, you'll see tracks of car wheels leading to a site where obviously parties and picnics are arranged, 6tv.by writes.

It's high time for the local authorities to restore order here. The cemetery is not only a place where people are buried, but is also a place of historical, cultural and architectural significance.

The Jewish cemetery in Shklou is material and non-material heritage of our history. Jewish residents appeared in Shklou in the first half of the 17th century. Siniauski and Chartaryjskikh, who were the city rulers at that time, granted the local Jews the first "privileges". The Jewish community of Shklou quickly developed. In 1668, Georg Korb, the secretary of the Austrian ambassador at the court of Peter I, noted that Shklou's Jews were "a rich and influential social class."

Moreover, on the border of the XVIII - XIX centuries, the city became some kind of "Jewish metropolis," and at the same time, it became a center for the dissemination of a variety of knowledge and ideas among the Jewish community of the Russian Empire. In 1897 there were 5122 Jews in Shklou (78% of the population).

From those distant times on, there has been a Jewish cemetery in Shklou. As it should be, it is outside the city border. The territory of the cemetery is surrounded by an artificial moat. There is a stone staircase-corridor from the north-eastern side. The staircase-corridor used to have a wooden roof and it was closed with a gate. By now, this ancient building has been preserved in part. The cemetery is divided into two equal parts, between which, on the west side, there were entrance gates. On the northern outskirts of the cemetery there are several common graves and a Holocaust Memorial. The bulk of the ancient tombstones was destroyed during the last war and in the post-war period.

Today the Shklou Jewish cemetery is of great value and is known in the world community. Almost every year it is visited by descendants of Shklou Jews and research expeditions.

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