Akkerman Cemeteries

Jewish Cemetery in Lazo Street

Present use: Jewish Cemetery

Current Size: 12000 sq. meters

Number of Gravestones in Cemetery: 500 - 1000

Cemetery established: early 20th century

Date of the Oldest Known Gravestone: 1904

Last Known Jewish Burial: 2008

Demarcation: A continuous concrete wall

Structures within the Cemetery: A pre-burial house with a watchman's appartment

Location: The cemetery is located about 1500 meters from the railway station at the cross-roads of Lazo Street and Marshala Biryuzova Street. (There is a bakery plant and a canning plant nearby.)

Maintenance & Restoration: Drug users often use the cemetery as a hangout. Syringes have been identified on the cemetery grounds. Some restoration work has been undertaken. The cemetery contains marked mass graves.

Current State: The cemetery is identified and demarcated. Weather erosion, pollution, vandalism & vegetation threats are serious.

Source: Lo Tishkach Foundation Report (edited in 2010, probably collected during 2008/2009)

Aerial view of the jewish cemetery on the crossings of Lazo and Marshala Biryuzova Streets
Open view on Google Maps

Old Jewish Cemetery

In the International Jewish Cemetery Project (www.iajgsjewishcemeteryproject.org) page for Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyy it is mentionned:
"restoration of the oldest Jewish cemetery in Ukraine, dating from the Middle Ages. Monuments and grave sites have been vandalized over the past few years. The community plans to erect a new fence around the cemetery and to construct security facilities. [August 2009]".

An article at old-akkerman.livejournal.com shows:
The first Akkerman Master Plan, compiled in 1841 shows a city cemetery on Ismail Road, opposite the post office (on the spot where "elite" house now stands). Below and to the left, it shows the Jewish cemetery on the old road of Odessa

Extract of an article at lechaim.ru (March 2006) - see full article here:
"Our city has over 25 centuries, the Jewish cemetery - in the order of 2000 years, it is one of the oldest in Ukraine, - says Vladimir Markovich. - Preserved very ancient tombs. For example, here it is buried aadviser to the Turkish pasha. "
The cemetery covers an area of more than 4 hectares. For many years, abiding in a state of neglect, it gradually becomes "civilized". Thank you fellow countrymen who live in Israel. It turns out that there exists a community of former residents Akkerman, namely its members have collected a small amount with a view to put in order the graves in the Jewish cemetery of his hometown. "The old graves quite overgrown, - explains Rabbi Fischl - so the money raised we hired people, pruned trees, branches taken, ennobled cemetery, led him to order."
Today, decades later, in the Jewish cemetery of the White City on the Dniester funeral rite is performed again in accordance with Jewish law. But what is a few decades of atheistic tyranny of Soviet rule as compared with twenty centuries of the ancient cemetery? After the graves preserved here, which at 800, 900 and 1000 years!
Says Rabbi Fischl Chichelnitsky: "Anyone who wants to bury their loved ones today at the Jewish cemetery, do it according to the Jewish law. In Odessa, there are "Chevra Kadisha" - there come the dead man lay on the floor, wash - male or female, depending on the person who died. And we gather a minyan, we have a shroud - tahrihim. The only thing we have few young, so normally the soldiers digging the grave as well - no derogation from the Jewish law, nothing ... "

Is it the same cemetery? If so, why in the Lo-Tishkash report the oldest gravestone is from 1904?

Any additional information about Akkerman cemeteries is welcomed.