Last fall Vilnius hosted an international conference on cemetery research.

Dr. Caroline Sturdy Colls, conference participant and Associate Professor of

Forensic Archaeology and Genocide Investigation at Staffordshire University,

United Kingdom, agreed to share her knowledge with our readers

STURDY COLLS, Caroline

STORE - Staffordshire Online Repository

13Before the Holocaust, Jewish cemeteries were at the heart of Jewish communities across Europe, as places where the histo-ry of the Jewish people was preserved and remembered. During the Holocaust, the Nazis saw them as physical and symbol-ic expressions of Jewish culture. In an at-tempt to erase all traces of Jewish people, tombstones were toppled, graves desecrat-ed, bones removed, and funerary houses looted. Not content with inflicting physi-cal damage, the Nazis used cemeteries as execution sites, with mass graves excavat-ed for (and sometimes by) those killed.Within the field of archaeology, archaeol-ogists have developed well-tested meth-odologies for locating and excavating historic cemeteries and, in the field of forensic archaeology, for identifying un-marked graves. However, the examination of Jewish cemeteries using archaeological approaches has been limited. This is in spite of the fact that the majority of Jew-ish cemeteries remain under threat. Many are damaged, dilapidated and/or reused for other purposes. Therefore, there is an urgent need to locate, record and char-acterize them before more traces of the past, and more importantly people, are lost. Because of this damage, dilapidation and reuse, there may be obstacles to in-terventions within cemeteries. Vegetation and even structural remains may obscure them, vandalism may have ruined them, and neglect may have caused their loca-tions to fade from living memory. Several examples exist here in Lithuania. Due to the condition many cemeteries are found in, there is often the perception that noth-ing remains of them. However, as an ar-chaeologist experienced in examining historic and contemporary sites, I know that the traces of these important places will likely remain hidden below the sur-face.In the past, the traces of Jewish cemeteries have not been examined in detail using archaeological methods because many archaeologists have failed to find a bal-ance between scientific investigation and the religious requirements of Halachic Law. Traditional methods of archaeolog-ical excavation will not usually be appro-priate in cemeteries due to the Halachic stipulation that disturbing the body of a person buried in a cemetery also disturbs their soul. On occasion, there has been fierce confrontation between archaeolo-gists and Jewish communities when exca-vation has been carried out at, for exam-ple, sites of Nazi atrocity. However, the reality is that sites will come under threat from development, graves may emerge due to erosion, research in-itiatives may be instigated and there may be a desire to erect fences, restore ceme-teries and locate unmarked graves in the future. It is also important to remember that not all remains at Jewish cemeteries will be buried and therefore we should not overlook the other elements that make up cemeteries e.g. funeral houses and mausoleums, that have the potential to reveal new information about people and communities about whom knowl-edge has been lost.Non-Invasive ArchaeologyFortunately, archaeologists now have a number of non-invasive techniques at their disposal that offer the opportunity to investigate Jewish cemeteries in a way that respects their religious significance, over-comes the challenges posed by years of neglect and maximizes the amount of in-formation that can be gleaned about them.The assimilation of different types of data recorded using non-invasive methods offers numerous opportunities for edu-cation and the dissemination of informa-tion about Jewish cemeteries. By merging together three dimensional, spatially ac-curate data with material collected about the people and communities connected to cemeteries, it is possible to create her-itage tools that both educate and com-memorate. Whilst there are already many important databases of Jewish cemeteries, non-invasive archaeological survey of-fers the opportunity to enrich these plat-forms and provide new ones that provide highly accurate virtual tours alongside maps, documents, photographs and oth-er historical information. This has been successfully achieved by the author in relation to Treblinka extermination and labour camps in Poland for example, by making it possible encounter archival and archaeological sources during a virtual tour of the site. Therefore, to adapt Ruth Ellen Gruber’s assertion about cemetery restoration, archaeological surveys of Jew-ish cemeteries are vital in order to “rescue memory and return from oblivion.” These methods would undoubtedly be of value for recording Jewish cemeteries in Lithu-ania, particularly those that remain at risk of development or ongoing neglect.The first stage of any archaeological inves-tigation should be the desk-based assess-ment phase. During this phase, archaeol-ogists will examine historical documents, testimonies, photographs, historic and re-cent maps, aerial photographs and satellite imagery in order to evaluate the extent and nature of sites. Let me provide an example. During the Occupation of the island of Alderney in the British Channel Islands, the Nazis interred thousands of forced la-bourers, including Jewish and non-Jewish people from all over Europe. Hundreds are known to have died; whilst some were bur-ied in individual graves within a cemetery, the bodies of others were never found. In 2010, I initiated a project which sought to locate the remains of the cemetery and mass graves on Alderney. The first stage of this work involved the collation of maps, documents and photographs, and the analysis of hundreds of aerial photographs in order to identify its possible location, Advances in the Use of Technology within European Jewish CemeteriesLast fall Vilnius hosted an international conference on cemetery research. Dr. Caroline Sturdy Colls, conference participant and Associate Professor of Forensic Archaeology and Genocide Investigation at Staffordshire Universi-ty, United Kingdom, agreed to share her knowledge with our readers.14the graves (Fig. 2). By analyzing historical material collected during the desk-based assessment phase in conjunction with these results, it was possible to identify previously unknown graves and examine patterns in the configuration of the graves within the cemetery. Geophysical survey has been used at other sites to identify the locations of graves so that these areas could be marked and avoided during fu-ture development or excavation works. In August 2016, I will use these methods to help locate unmarked graves and toppled tombstones in Oświęcim cemetery.In the future, non-invasive methods of-fer the opportunity to:•	 locate	cemeteries,	their	boundaries	and	the graves they contain•	 locate	(and	re-erect)	tombstones•	 examine	motifs	and	text	on	tombstones•	 locate	and	protect	mass	graves	of	atroc-ities committed within cemeteries•	 understand	more	about	cultural	geno-cide perpetrated within cemeteries•	 preserve	 sites	by	way	of	digital	 record	and create innovative educational tools.Crucially, they offer the opportunity to do so:•	 in	a	way	that	respects	religious	law	con-cerning burials (e.g. without disturbing the ground if required)•	 despite	the	dilapidated	and	hidden	na-ture of sites•	 regardless	of	the	size	of	the	area	being	examined•	 in	a	way	that	creates	a	sustainable,	thor-ough record of Jewish cemeteries which provides new opportunities for educa-tion and commemoration worldwide.Caroline Sturdy Collsand to characterise where the individual and mass graves were to be found. Like-wise, owing to the fact that the Jewish victims were known to have been buried in a separate area within the cemetery, it was the aim of the research to locate these burials without disturbing the ground. The resulting analysis demonstrated how the cemetery had developed over time from 1942 to 1945, and clearly indicated the positions of the rows of individual graves, potential mass graves and Jewish area of the cemetery due to the presence of visible ground disturbance in these images. Like-wise, landscape markers shown in contem-porary photographs can be identified in the modern landscape to help determine the location of cemeteries and groups of graves, as in the example of the Jewish area of the cemetery in Alderney (Fig. 1).A recent development in remote sensing comes in the form of airborne LiDAR survey, LiDAR uses the emission and re-flection of laser pulses to generate three dimensional digital terrain models. These models show depressions in the ground, including those invisible to the naked eye, caused by the presence of buried remains, such as graves and structures, and so they can be used to detect graves, cemeteries boundaries and structures. Another ad-vantage of this method is that it allows vegetation to be digitally removed from the image – so if graves, boundaries and structures are present within woodlands or underneath dense vegetation, it is still possible to detect them. I have success-fully used this method to identify graves located deep within woodland near to the forced labour camps at Treblinka and Adampol in Poland. I am also using it to detect unmarked Jewish cemeteries in the Włodawa region of Poland, as well as in-dividual and mass graves in the town of Oświęcim. Terrestrial LiDAR methods (also known as laser scanning) also exist which allow matzevah to be scanned in three dimen-sions. This creates a permanent digital record for research and education, and (because of high definition nature of the technology) may make visible inscrip-tions on tombstones that are difficult to see with the naked eye. Virtual tours of cemeteries can also be created using this technology and using 360 degree photo-graphs to allow those unable to go to sites in person a chance to “visit”.The destruction of Jewish cemeteries, whether by the Nazis or as a result of oth-er landscape modification, resulted in the toppling and removal of tombstones, and the desecration of graves. Thus many of the physical remnants of Jewish cemeter-ies will only survive below the ground. Archaeologists now have a suite of geo-physical methods they can use to identi-fy buried remains and to model them in three dimensions. The example of Alder-ney mentioned earlier provides a useful example. Here, the boundaries of the cem-etery are no longer marked, nor are the sections of the cemetery which were used for Jewish and non-Jewish individual and mass burial. Resistance survey is a type of geophysical survey which can be used to detect shallow changes in resistance in the soil caused by the presence of buried re-mains. Using this method, it was possible to detect the boundaries of the cemetery and the rows of individual graves in each area. It was also possible to observe sever-al possible mass graves inside and outside the cemetery boundaries which were also visible in aerial photographs of the area. Another technique, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), which uses electromagnet-ic radio waves to detect disturbances be-low the ground, was then used to record the cemetery in three dimensions and further analyse the extent and nature of Figure 1: Comparison of a photograph taken in 1945 of Longy Common cemetery on Alderney of Jewish graves with a modern image showing the former locations of these graves (Copyright: Barney Winder (top image) and Caroline Sturdy Colls (bottom image).Figure 2: Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey (Copyright: Dr Caroline Sturdy Colls)

Advances in the Use of Technology within European Jewish Cemeteries

http://eprints.staffs.ac.uk/2790/1/advances.pdf

Advances in the Use of Technology within European Jewish Cemeteries

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