„Preserve your part of history!” – this is the motto for a group of volunteers from Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Sweden, France, Australia and the USA, who came from August 7th to August 21st to Chernovtsy to work on Jewish cemetery on Zelena St.

Chernovtsy are famous for its multiethnic community, which peacefully united different religions, languages and nations. Jewish community has played an important role in development of the town, and gave the world such famous workers of culture and art as poet Paul Celan, sculptor Bernhard, poet Rose Auslaender, singer Josef Schmidt and many others. During 2nd World war Jewish community of Chernovtsy has suffered terrible losses, and those, who survived Ghetto and camps of Transnistria, have mostly left their Motherland after the 2nd World war. Nowadays Jewish community of Chernovtsy is about 4% of what it was in the 50th of 20th century.

Jewish cemetery on Zelena St. is one of the biggest monuments of Jewish culture and history of Chernovtsy, and one of the few preserved historic cemeteries in Central and Eastern Europe. Many of the tomb stones are of significant cultural and artistic value, as they are also important from historic point of view. But huge bushes of nettles, ivy, vine, young maples are filling the paths with very thick brushwood, which make it impossible to pass and find certain graves. Thick undergrowth and roots of trees destroy the tombstones and damage the graves, which will soon lead to complete destruction of this historic heritage.

In the framework of international volunteer project, which takes place in Chernovtsy from August 7th to August 21st, an international group consisting of 12 volunteers is working on the cemetery, cleaning the graves and paths from the brushwood. It is also a possibility to learn about history of the town, role of Jewish community in its development, and importance of preserving cultural monuments of different nations in order to keep intercultural harmony, understanding and respect to the past for the future, preventing racism and xenophobia.

The project is dedicated to 600 anniversary of Chernovtsy. At the end of the project a press-conference will be organized for local media.

The project is organized by IVO “SVIT-Ukraine”, Service Civil International Germany, with support of City Council of Chernovtsy.