With some cemeteries in states of abandon over many years, we often have to spend a great deal of time clearing up the jungle before we can even start work. But sometimes, as here at Chachersk “new” Jewish cemetery (Novazakharpolle), our first construction project in Belarus, there was the opposite problem: dead vegetation. This time in the form of dead trees, presenting a very real danger to gravestones on site and to our own workers. With work now well underway at the cemetery, we hired special staff to chop down the trees, it being impossible obviously to uproot them which would disturn the graves.