Polish gov't supports Jewish cemetery conservation
PR dla Zagranicy
Agnieszka Łaszczuk
23.12.2017 10:02
The Polish government has donated PLN 100 million (USD 28 million) to restore the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, one of the largest such sites in Europe.
From left to right: Anna Chipczyńska (President of the Warsaw Jewish Community), Michael Schudrich (Chief Rabbi of Poland), Piotr Gliński (Poland's culture minister), Michał Laszczkowski (President of the National Heritage Foundation) at a press conference on a PLN 100 milion donation to preserve the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery on Friday. Photo: PAP/Les
The government has transferred the funds to Poland’s Cultural Heritage Foundation, which will oversee the restoration process in cooperation with the Warsaw Jewish Community.
A special agreement on the donation was signed on Friday by Poland’s deputy prime minister and culture minister Piotr Gliński and head of the Cultural Heritage Foundation, Michał Laszczkowski.
At a Friday conference Gliński said: "This area of over 33 hectares where Polish Jews are buried is part of the Polish cultural and national heritage."
Laszczkowski stressed that hundreds of the cemetery's tombstones are dilapidated.
According to Anna Chipczyńska, the president of the Jewish Community in Warsaw, the donation "has been the most important gesture of the Polish state aimed at protecting the Jewish material heritage."
Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, said that it is about "honoring the dead, which is very important in our culture."
Warsaw's Okopowa Jewish Cemetery currrently houses over 250,000 graves.
(ał/pk)
Source: IAR, PAP