An agreement has been signed to guaranteed the preservation of the historic Jewish cemetery in Bitola, Macedonia.
According to the news site Republika.mk, the mayor of Bitola and Israeli ambassador to Macedonia Dan Orian signed a declaration to protect and reserve the cemetery, one of the largest and oldest in the Balkans.
“With this agreement, the Jewish cemetery in Bitola will be protected from the effects of time, will be preserved, and will be elevated into a significant cultural and historic monument,” the article quoted Mayor Vladimir Taleski as saying. A memorial street will be lined with trees, one for each of the Jewish families that once lived in Bitola.”
Bitola was a major center of Jewish life in the Balkans with a large, in generally impoverished, population. Out of about 3,350 Jews who lived there on the eve of World War II, only about 100 survived.
Founded in 1497, the cemetery, located on a steep hillside, was abandoned and left to ruin after World War II. About 1,000 tombstones — horizontal as in the Sephardic tradition — remain in place, but most are heavily eroded and illegible. The cemetery is enclose by a wall, with a big gate with a arched entrance flanked by two arched windows. A civic campaign to restore it got under way in 1997, to coincide with the 500th anniversary of its foundation, and various groups have from time to time cleared vegetation and cleaned the stones.
Read full article on Republika.mk