Our team has concluded the second stage of the national survey launched this summer. Out of the 170 localities where Jewish cemeteries could have been located according to various sources, we documented 130 burial sites. The collected data will now be processed, and our historians will prepare a report on Jewish cemeteries in Serbia — set to become the most comprehensive study of its kind ever produced for the country.
This information will later be used to guide the fencing of the most vulnerable Jewish cemeteries in Serbia.
As our team notes, the surveys in Serbia have proven to be the most challenging compared to those we have conducted in other countries. Due to certain historical events, a large part of Serbia’s population was displaced, and many cemeteries, along with records about them, have disappeared. As a result, many people living near these burial sites today are unaware that they ever existed.
The surveys in Serbia were carried out by ESJF Senior Surveyor Ian Galevskii, together with our country coordinator Ladislav Trajer from the Federation of Jewish Communities in Serbia. This work was funded by the Auswärtiges Amt (German Federal Foreign Office).